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50 


KEARNEY • • • COPPEE 


The 

Days of My Youth 


Y'TOUl'li UNK JEUNESSE^']^ 


NEW YORK 

BEDFORD COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 
18-22 East i8th Street 
[Publishers of Belford''s Magazine^ 


The Belford American Novel Series. Vol. II. No. 3. Annual Subscription, .$15.00. Issued 
weekly. Entered at the New York Post Office as second-class matter. June 9, 1890. 



THE DAYS OF MY YOUTH 


TO LOUIS DEPRET. 

I have wished for some time to dedicate one of 
my books to you, my dear Depret ; first, as you are 
a refined writer and a moralist to whom we owe so 
many sagacious and shrewd observations upon the 
human soul ; then as the friend whom I love most, 
and by whom I am most beloved. I have just fin- 
ished Toute une Jeunesse.” These pages are 
not a confession or an autobiography, any more thar.', 
Dickens’s delicious masterpiece, “ David Copper- 
field ” — si parva licet. Only I will admit that the 
imaginary personage, Amedee Violette, experienced 
life as I experienced it, when I was a child and a 
young man. Such as it is, the book is sincere. 
May its emotions and ironies please you, my dear 
Depret. 

Most sincerely yours, 

FRANgOIS COPPEE. 


V 


KEARNEY • • ■ COPPEE 

I t) 


The Days of My Youth 

» 


imOM THE FRENCH OF FRANQOIS COPP^:E] 



NEW YORK 

BELFORD COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 
18-22 East i8th Street 
[Publishers of Belford^s Magazine] 




^^3 

'C7^5i) 


Copyright, 1890, by 

« 

BELFORD COMPANY 



TROWS 

PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY^ 
NEW YORK. 



THE DAYS OF MY YOUTH. 


CHAPTER I. 

As far back as Amedee Violette can remem- 
ber, he sees himself in an infant’s cap upon a 
fifth-floor balcony covered with convolvulus ; 
the child was very small and the balcony 
seemed very large to him. Amedee had been 
given for a birthday present a box of water- 
colors, with which he was sprawled out upon 
an old rug, earnestly intent upon his work of 
coloring the woodcuts in an odd volume of 
the Magasin Pittoresque, and wetting his brush 
from time to time in his mouth. The neigh- 
bors in the next apartment had a right to one- 
half of the balcony. Someone in there was 
playing upon the piano Marcailhou’s Indiana 
waltz, which was all the rage at that time. 
Any man born about the year 1845, who does 
not feel the tears of homesickness rise to his 
eyes as he turns over the pages of an old num- 
ber of the Magasin Pittoresque^ or who hears 


6 


The Days of My Youth, 


sopieone play upon an old piano Marcailhou’s 
Indiana waltz, is not endowed with much sen- 
sibility. 

When the child was tired of putting the 
“ flesh color” upon the faces of all the persons 
in the engravings, he got up and went to peep 
through the railings of the balustrade. He 
saw extending before him, from right to left, 
with a graceful curve. Rue Notre-Dame-des- 
Champs, one of the most quiet streets in the 
Luxembourg quarter, then only half built up. 
The branches of the trees spread over the 
wooden fences which enclosed gardens so silent 
and tranquil that passers-by could hear the 
birds singing in their cages. 

It was a September afternoon, with a broad 
expanse of pure sky upon which large clouds, 
like mountains of silver, moved in majestic 
slowness. 

Suddenly a soft voice called him : 

“ Amedee, your father will return from the 
office soon. We must wash your hands before 
we sit down to the table, my darling.” 

His mother came out upon the balcony for 
him. His mother ; his dear mother, whom he 
knew for so short a time ! It needs an effort 
for him to call her to mind now, his memories 
are so indistinct. She was so modest and 
pretty, so pale and with such charming blue 
eyes, always carrying her head to one side, as 


The Days of My Youth. 


7 


if the weight of her lovely chestnut hair was 
too heavy for her to bear, and smiling the 
sweet, tired smile of those who have not long 
to live ! She made his toilet, kissed him upon 
his forehead, after having brushed his hair. 
Then she laid their modest table, which was 
always decorated with a pretty vase of flowers. 
Soon the father entered. He was one of those 
mild, unpretentious men, who let everybody 
run over them. 

He tried to be gay when he entered his own 
house. He raised his little boy aloft with one 
arm, before kissing him, exclaiming, “ houp 
la!” A moment later he kissed his young 
wife and held her close to him, tenderly, as he 
asked, with an anxious look : 

“ Have you coughed much to-day ? ” 

She always replied, hanging her head like a 
child who tells an untruth, “No, not very 
much.” 

The father would then put on an old coat — 
the one he took off was not very new. Ame- 
dee was then seated in a high chair before his 
mug, and the young mother, going into the 
kitchen, would bring in the supper. After 
having opened his napkin, the father would 
brush back behind his ear with his hand a 
long lock on the right side, that always fell 
into his eyes. 

“ Is there too much of a breeze this even- 


8 


The Days of My Youth, 


ing ? Are you afraid to go out upon the bal- 
cony, Lucie ? Put a shawl on, then,” said M. 
Violette, while his wife was pouring the water 
remaining in the caraffe upon a box where 
some nasturtiums were growing. 

“No, Paul, I am sure — take AmMee down 
from his chair, and let us go out upon the bal- 
cony.” 

It was cool upon this high balcony. The 
sun had set, and now the great clouds resem- 
bled mountains of gold, and a fresh odor came 
up from the surrounding gardens. 

“ Good -evening. Monsieur Violette,” sud- 
denly said a cordial voice. “ What a fine 
evening ! ” 

It was their neighbor, M. Gerard, an en- 
graver, who had also come to take breath 
upon his end of the balcony, after having 
spent the entire day bent over his work. He 
was a large, bald-headed man, with a good- 
natured face, a red beard sprinkled with white 
hairs, wearing a short, loose coat. As he 
spoke he lighted his clay pipe, the bowl of 
which represented Abd-el-Kader's face, very 
much colored, save the eyes and turban, which 
were of white enamel. 

The engraver’s wife, a dumpy little woman 
with nierry eyes, soon joined her husband, 
pushing before her two little girls ; one, the 
smaller of the two, was two years younger than 


The Days of My Youth. 


9 


AmM^e ; the other was ten years old, and al- 
ready had a wise little air. She was the pian- 
ist who practised one hour a day Marcailhou’s 
“ Indiana.*' 

The children chattered through the trellis 
that divided the balcony in two parts. Lou- 
ise, the eldest of the girls, knew how to read, 
and told the two little ones very beautiful sto- 
ries: Joseph sold by his brethren; Robinson 
Crusoe discovering the footprints of human 
beings. 

Amed6e, who now has gray hair upon his 
temples, can still remember the chills that ran 
down his back at the moment when the wolf, 
hidden under coverings and the grandmother’s 
cap, said, with a gnashing of teeth, to little 
Red Riding Hood : “All the better to eat you 
with, my child.” 

It was almost dark then upon the terrace. 
It was all delightfully terrible ! 

During this time the two families, in their 
respective parts of the balcony, were talking 
familiarly together. The Violettes were quiet 
people, and preferred rather to listen to their 
neighbors than to talk themselves, making brief 
replies for politeness sake — “Ah!” “Is it pos- 
sible ?” “You are right.” 

The Gerards liked to talk. Madame Ge- 
rard, who was a good housekeeper, discussed 
some question of domestic economy ; telling. 


lo The Days of My Youth. 

for example, how she had been out that day, 
and had seen, upon the Rue du Bac, some 
merino : “ A very good bargain, I assure you, 
Madame, and very wide ! ” Or perhaps the 
engraver, who was a simple politician, after 
the fashion of 1848, would declare that we 
must accept the Republic, “ Oh ! not the red- 
hot, you know, but the true, the real one ! ” 
Or he would wish that Cavaignac had been 
elected President at the September balloting ; 
although he himself was then engraving — one 
must live, after all — a portrait of Prince Louis 
Napoleon, destined for the electoral platform. 
M. and Mme. Violette let them talk ; perhaps 
even they did not always pay attention to the 
conversation. When it was dark they held 
each other’s hands and gazed at the stars. 

These lovely cool autumnal evenings, upon 
the balcony, under the starry heavens, are the 
most distant of all AmMee’s memories. Then 
there was a break in his memory, like a book 
with several leaves torn out, after which he 
recalls many sad days. 

Winter had come, and they no longer spent 
their evenings upon the balcony. One could 
see nothing now through the windows but a 
dull gray sky. Amedee’s mother was ill and 
always remained in her bed. When he was 
installed near the bed, before a little table, 
cutting out with scissors the hussars from a 


The Days of My Youth. 1 1 

sheet of Epinal, his poor mamma almost 
frightened him, as she leaned her elbow upon 
the pillow and gazed at him so long and so 
sadly, while her thin white hands restlessly 
pushed back her beautiful disordered hair, 
and two red hectic spots burned under her 
cheek-bones. 

It was not she who now came to take him 
from his bed in the morning, but an old wom- 
an in a short jacket, who did not kiss him, 
and who smelled horribly of snuff. 

His father, too, did not pay much attention 
to him now. When he returned in the even- 
ing from the office he always brought bottles 
and little packages from the apothecary. 
Sometimes he was accompanied by the phy- 
sician, a large man very much dressed and 
perfumed, who panted for breath after having 
climbed the five flights of stairs. Once Ame- 
dee saw this stranger put his arms around his 
mother as she sat in her bed, and lay his head 
for a long time against her back. The child 
asked, “What for, mamma?” 

M. Violette, more nervous than ever, and 
constantly throwing back the rebellious lock 
behind his ear, would accompany the doctor 
to the door and stop there to talk with him. 
Then Amedee’s mother would call to him, and 
he would climb upon the bed, where she 
would gaze at him with her bright eyes and 


12 


The Days of My Youth. 


press him to her breast, saying, in a sad tone 
of voice, as if she pitied him, “ My poor little 
Medee ! My little Medee ! ” Why was it ? 
What did it all mean ? 

His father would return with a forced smile 
which was pitiful to see. 

“ Well, what did the doctor say ? ” 

“Oh, nothing, nothing! You are much 
better. Only, my poor Lucie, we must put 
on another blister to-night.” 

Oh ! how monotonous and slow these days 
were to the little Amedee, near the drowsy 
invalid, in the close room smelling of drugs, 
where only the old snuff-taker entered once 
an hour to bring a cup of tea or put charcoal 
upon the fire ! 

Sometimes their neighbor, Madame Gerard, 
would come to inquire after the sick lady. 

“ Still very feeble, my good Madame Ge- 
rard,” his mother would respond. “Ah ! I am 
beginning to get discouraged.” 

But Madame Gerard would not let her be 
despondent. 

“You see, Madame Violette, it is this hor- 
rible endless winter. It is almost March, now, 
they are already selling boxes of primroses in 
little carts on the sidewalks. You will surely 
be better as- soon as the sun shines. If you like, 
I will take little Am^d^e back with me to play 
with my little girls. It will amuse the child.” 


The Days of My Youth. 


13 


So it happened that the good neighbor kept 
the child every afternoon, and he became very 
fond of the little Gerard children. 

Four little rooms, that is all ; but with a pile 
of old, amusing furniture ; engravings, casts, 
and pictures painted by comrades are on the 
vyalls ; the doors are always open, and the 
children can always play where they like, 
chase each other through the apartments, or 
pillage them. In the drawing-room, which has 
been transformed into a work-room, the ar- 
tist sits upon a high stool, point in hand ; 
the light from a curtainless window, sifting 
through the transparent paper, makes the 
worthy man’s skull shine as he leans over his 
copper plate. He works hard all day ; with an 
expensive house and two girls to bring up, it 
is necessary. In spite of his advanced opin- 
ions, he continued to engrave his Prince 
Louis — ‘‘A rogue who is trying to juggle us 
out of a Republic.” At the very most, he 
only stops two or three times a day to smoke 
his Abd-el-Kader. Nothing distracts him from 
his work ; not even the little ones, who tired 
of playing their piece for four hands upon the 
piano, have just organized, with Am^dee, a 
game of hide-and-seek close by their father, 
behind the old Empire sofa ornamented with 
bronze lions’ heads. But Madame Gerard in 
her kitchen, where she is always cooking 


14 The Days of My Youth. 

something good for dinner, thinks that they 
make too great an uproar. Just then, Maria, 
a real hoyden, in trying to catch her sister, 
pushes an old arm-chair against a Renaissance 
chest and makes all the Rouen crockery trem- 
ble. 

“Now then, now then, children!” exclaims 
Mamma Gerard, from the depths of her lair, 
from which escapes a delicious perfume of 
bacon. “Let your father have a little quiet, 
and go and play in the dining-room.” 

They obey ; for there they can move 
chairs as they like, build houses of them, and 
play at making calls. Did ever anybody have 
such wild ideas at five years of age as this 
Maria ? She takes Amedee’s arm, whom she 
calls her little husband, and goes to call upon 
her sister and show her her little child, a paste- 
board doll with a large head, wrapped up in a 
napkin. 

“ As you see, Madame, it is a boy.” 

“ What do you intend to make of him when 
he grows up ? ” asks Louise, who lends herself 
complacently to the play, for she is ten years 
old and quite a young lady, if you please. 

“Why, Madame,” replies Maria, gravely, 
“ he will be a soldier.” 

At that moment the engraver, who has left 
his bench to stretch his legs a little and to 
light his Abd-el-Kader for the third time. 


The Days of My Youth. 


15 


comes and stands upon the threshold of his 
room. Madame Gerard, reassured as to the 
state of her stew, which is slowly cooking — 
and oh, how good it does smell in the kitchen ! 
— enters the dining-room. They both of them 
look at the children, so comical and so grace- 
ful, as they make their little grimaces ! Then 
the husband glances at his wife, and the wife 
at the husband, and they both burst out into 
hearty laughter. 

There was never any laughter in the apart- 
ment of the Violettes. It was cough ! cough ! 
cough ! almost to suffocation, almost to death ! 
This gentle young woman with the heavy hair 
was going to die ! When the beautiful starry 
evenings came again she would no longer 
linger on the balcony, or press her husband’s 
hand as they gazed at the stars. Little Ame- 
dee did not understand it ; but he felt a vague 
terror of something dreadful happening in the 
house. Everything scared him now. He was 
afraid of the old woman who smelled of snulf, 
and who, when she dressed him in the morn- 
ing, looked at him with a pitying air ; he was 
afraid of the doctor, who climbed the five 
flights of stairs twice a day now, and left a 
whiff of perfume behind him ; afraid of his 
father, who did not go to his office now, whose 
beard was often three days old, and who fever- 
ishly paced tho little parlor, tossing back with 


i6 


The Days of My Youth. 


a distracted gesture his lock of hair behind his 
ear. He was afraid of his mother, alas ! of 
his mother, whom he had seen that evening, 
by the light from the night-lamp, buried in 
the pillows, her delicate nose and chin thrown 
up, and who did not seem to recognize him, 
in spite of her wide open eyes, when his father 
took her child in his arms and leaned over her 
with him that he might kiss her cold forehead 
covered with sweat ! 

At last the terrible day arrived, a day that 
Amedee will never forget, although he was 
then a small, a very small, child. 

What awakened him that morning was his 
father’s embrace as he came and took him 
from his bed. His father’s eyes were wild 
and bloodshot from so much crying. Why 
was their neighbor M. Gerard there so early 
in the morning, and with great tears rolling 
down his cheeks too ? He kept beside M. 
Violette as if watching him, and patted him 
upon the back affectionately, saying, 

“ Now, then, my poor friend ! Have cour- 
age ! courage ! ” 

But the poor friend had no more. He let 
M. Gerard take the child from him, and then 
his head fell like a dead person’s upon the 
good engraver's shoulder, and he commenced 
to cry with heavy sobs that shook his whole 
body. 


% 


The Days of My Youth. 1 7 

“ Mamma ! See Mamma ! ” cried the little 
Amedee, full of terror. 

Alas ! he will never see her again ! At the 
Gerards, where they carried him and the kind 
neighbor dressed him, they told him that his 
mother had gone for a long time, a very long 
time ; that he must love his papa very much and 
think only of him ; and other things that he could 
not understand and dared not ask the meaning 
of, but which filled him with consternation. 

It was strange ! The engraver and his wife 
busied themselves entirely with him, watching 
him every moment. The little ones too treated 
liim in a singular, almost respectful manner. 
What had caused such a change ? Louise did 
not open her piano, and when little Maria 
wished to take her “ menagerie ” from the 
lower part of the buffet, Madame Gerard said 
sharply, as she wiped the tears from her eyes : 
“You must not play to-day." 

After breakfast Madame Gerard put on her 
hat and shawl and went out, taking AmMee 
with her. They got into a carriage that took 
them through streets that the child did not 
know, across a bridge in the middle of which 
stood a large brass horseman, with his head 
crowned with laurel, and stopped before a 
large house and entered with the crowd, where 
a very agile and rapid young man put some 
black clothes on Am^dec. 


2 


i8 


The Days of My Youth. 


On their return the child found his father 
seated at the dining-room table with M. Gerard, 
and both of them were writing addresses upon 
large sheets of paper bordered with black. M. 
Violette was not crying, but his face showed 
deep lines of grief, and he let his lock of hair 
fall over his right eye. 

At the sight of little Amedee, in his black 
clothes, he uttered a groan, and arose stagger- 
ing like a drunken man, bursting into tears 
again. 

Oh ! no, he will never forget that day, nor 
the horrible next day, when Madame Gerard 
came and dressed him in the morning in his 
black clothes, while he listened to the noise of 
heavy feet and blows from a hammer in the 
next room. He suddenly remembered that he 
had not seen his mother since two days be- 
fore. 

“ Mamma ! I want to see mamma ! ” 

It was necessary then to try to make him 
understand the truth. Madame Gerard re- 
peated to him that he ought to be very wise 
and good, and try to console his father, who 
had much to grieve him ; for his mother had 
gone away forever ; that she was in heaven. 

In heaven ! heaven is very high up and far 
off. If his mother is in heaven, what was it 
that those porters dressed in black carried 
away in the heavy box that they knocked at 


The Days of My Youth. 


19 


every turn of the staircase ? What did that 
solemn carriage, which he followed through 
all the rain, quickening his childish steps, with 
Ids little hand tightly clasped in his father’s, 
carry away ? What did they bury in that hole, 
from which an odor of freshly dug earth was 
emitted — in that hole surrounded by men in 
black, and from which his father turned his 
head away in horror ? What was it that they 
hid in this ditch, in this garden full of crosses 
and stone urns, where the newly budded trees 
shone in the March sun after the shower, large 
drops of water still falling from their branches 
like tears ? 

His mother is in heaven ! On the evening 
of that dreadful day Amedee dared not ask to 
“ see mamma ” when he was seated before his 
father at the table, where, for a long time, the 
old woman in a short jacket had only placed 
two plates. The poor widower, who had just 
wiped his eyes with his napkin, had put upon 
one of the plates a little meat cut up in bits 
for Amedee. He was very pale, and as Amedee 
sat in his high chair, he asked himself if he 
should recognize his mother’s sweet caressing 
look, some day, in one of those stars that she 
loved to watch, seated upon the balcony on 
cool September nights, pressing her husband’s 
hand in the darkness. 


I 


CHAPTER ir. 


Trees are like men ; there are some that 
have no luck. A genuinely unfortunate tree 
was the poor devil of a sycamore which grew 
in the play-ground of an institution for boys 
on the Rue de la Grande-Chaumiere, directed 
by M. Batifol. 

Chance might just as well have made it 
grow upon the banks of a river, upon some 
pretty bluff, where it might have seen the 
boats pass ; or, better still, upon the mall in 
some garrison village, where it could have 
liad the pleasure of listening twice a week to 
military music. Well, no ! it was written in 
the book of fate that this unlucky sycamore- 
tree should lose its bark every summer, as a 
serpent changes its skin, and should scatter 
the ground with its dead leaves at the first 
frost, in the play-ground of the Batifol insti- 
tution, which was a place without any distrac- 
tions. 

This solitary tree, which was like any other 
sycamore, middle-aged and without any singu- 
larities, ought to have had the painful feeling 


The Days of My Youth. 


21 


that it served in a measure to deceive the 
public. In fact upon the advertisement of the 
Batifol institution (Cours du lycee Henri IV. 
Preparation au baccalaureat et aux ecoles de 
I’Etat), one read these fallacious words, “ there 
is a garden ; ” when in reality it was only a 
vulgar court gravelled with stones from the 
river, with a paved gutter around the court in 
which one could gather half a dozen of lost 
marbles, a broken top, and a certain number 
of shoe-nails, and after recreation hours still 
more. This solitary sycamore justified the 
illusion and fiction of the garden promised in 
the advertisement ; but as trees have certainly 
common-sense, this one ought to have been 
conscious that it was not a garden of itself. 

It certainly was a very unjust fate for an 
inoffensive tree which had never harmed any- 
body ; only expanding, at one side of the 
gymnasium portico, in a perfect rectangle 
formed by a prison wall, bristling with the 
glass of broken bottles, and by three buildings 
of distressing similarity, showing, above the 
numerous doors on the ground-floor, inscrip- 
tions which merely to read induced a yawn : 
Hall I, Hall 2, Hall 3, Hall 4, Stairway A, 
Stairway B, Entrance to the Dormitories, 
Dining-room, Laboratory. 

The poor sycamore was dying of chagrin in 
this dismal place. Its only happy seasons — the 


22 


The Days of My Youth. 


recreation hours, when the court echoed with 
the shouts and laughter of the boys — were 
spoiled for it by the sight of two or three pu- 
pils who were punished by standing at the foot 
of its trunk. Parisian birds, who are not fas- 
tidious, scarcely ever lighted upon the tree, 
and never built their nests there. It might 
even be imagined that this disenchanted tree, 
when the wind agitated its foliage, would 
charitably say, “ Believe me ! the place is good 
for nothing. Go and make love elsewhere ! ” 

In the shade of this sycamore-tree, planted 
under an unlucky star, the greater part of 
Amedee’s infancy was passed. 

M. Violette was an employe of the Ministry, 
and obliged to work seven hours a day, one or 
two hours of wdiich were devoted to going 
wearily through a bundle of probably super- 
fluous papers and documents. The rest of the 
time was given to other occupations as varied 
as they were intellectual ; such as yawning, 
filing his nails, talking about his chiefs, groan- 
ing over the slowness of promotion, cooking a 
potato or a sausage in the stove for his lunch- 
eon, reading the newspaper to the editor’s 
signature, and advertisements in which some 
country cur^ expresses his artless gratitude at 
being cured at last of an obstinate disease. 
In recompense for this daily captivity M. 
Violette received, at the end of the month, a 


The Days of My Youth. 


23 


sum exactly sufficient to secure his household 
soup and beef, with a few vegetables. 

In order that his son might attain such 
a distinguished position, M. Violette’s father, 
a watch-maker in Chartres, sacrificed every- 
thing, and died penniless. The Silvio Pellico 
official, during these exasperating and tiresome 
hours, sometimes regretted not having simply 
succeeded his father. He could see himself, 
in imagination, in the light little shop near 
the cathedral, with a magnifying-glass fixed 
in his eye, ready to inspect some farmer’s old 
turnip,” and suspended over his bench thirty 
silver and gold watches left by farmers the 
week before, who would profit by the next 
market-day to come and get them, all go- 
ing together with a merry tick. It may be 
questioned if a trade as low as this would have 
been fitting a young man of education, a 
Bachelor of Arts, crammed with Greek roots 
and quotations, able to prove the existence of 
God, and to recite without hesitation the dates 
of the reigns of Nabonassar and of Nabopo- 
lassar. This watch-maker, this simple artisan, 
understood modern genius better. This mod- 
est shopkeeper acted according to the demo- 
cratic law and followed the instinct of a no- 
ble and wise ambition. He made of his son 
— a sensible and intelligent boy — a machine 
to copy documents, and spend his days guess- 


24 


The Days of My Youth, 


ing the conundrums in the illustrated news- 
papers, which he read as easily as M. Ledrain 
would decipher the cuneiform inscriptions on 
an Assyrian brick. Also — an admirable result, 
which should rejoice the old watch-maker’s 
shade — his son had become a gentleman, a 
functionary, so splendidly remunerated by the 
state that he was obliged to wear patches of 
cloth, as near like the trousers as possible, on 
their seat ; and his poor young wife, during her 
life, had always been obliged, as rent-day 
drew near, to carry the soup-ladle and six 
silver covers to the pawn-shop. 

At all events M. Violette was a widower 
now, and being busy all day was very much 
embarrassed with his little son. His neigh- 
bors, the Gerards, were very kind to Amedee, 
and continued to keep him with them all the 
afternoon. This state of affairs could not al- 
ways continue, and M. Violette scrupled to 
abuse his worthy friends’ kindness in that 
way. 

However, Amedee gave them scarcely any 
trouble, and Mamma Gerard loved him like 
her own. The orphan was now inseparable 
from little Maria, a perfect little witch, who 
became prettier every day. The engraver, 
having found in a cupboard the old bear-skin 
cap which he had worn as a grenadier in the 
National Guard, a head-dress that had been 


The Days of My Youth. 


25 


suppressed since ’48, he gave it to the chil- 
dren. What a magnificent plaything it was ! 
and how well calculated to excite their imag- 
ination ! It was immediately transformed in 
their minds into a frightfully large and fero- 
cious bear, which they commenced to chase 
through the apartment, lying in wait for it 
behind arm-chairs, striking at it with sticks, 
and puffing out their little cheeks with all 
their might to say “poum!” and imitate the 
report of a gun. This hunting diversion com- 
pleted the destruction of the old furniture. 
Tranquil in the midst of the joyous uproar 
and disorder the engraver was busily at work 
finishing off the broad ribbon of the Legion 
of Honor, and the large bullion epaulettes of 
the Prince President, whom, as a suspicious 
republican and foreseeing \.\iq coup d'etat^ he 
detested with all his heart. 

“Truly, Monsieur Violette,” said Mother 
Gerard to the employe, when he came for his 
little son upon his return from the office, and 
excused himself for the trouble that the child 
must give his neighbors, “truly, I assure you, 
he does not disturb us in the least. Wait a 
little before you send him to school. He is 
very quiet, and if Maria did not excite him so 
— upon my word she is more of a boy than he 
is — your Amed^e would always be looking at 
the pictures. My Louise hears him read every 


26 


The Days of My Youth. 


day two pages in the ‘Moral Tales,’ and yes- 
terday he amused Gerard by telling him the 
story of the grateful elephant. He can go to 
school later — wait a little.” 

But M. Violette had decided to send Ame- 
dee to M. Batifol’s. “Oh, yes, as a day 
scholar, of course ! It was so convenient ; 
not two steps’ distance. This would not pre- 
vent little Am^dee from seeing his friends 
often. He was nearly seven years old, and 
very backward ; he scarcely knew how to 
make his letters. One cannot commence with 
children too soon,” and much more to the 
same effect. 

This'was why, one fine spring day, M. Vio- 
lette wa^ ushered into M. Batifol’s office, 
who, the servant said, would be there directly. 

M. Batifol’s office was hideous. In the 
three bookcases which the master of the 
house — a perfect snob and greedy schoolmas- 
ter — never opened, were some of those books 
tliat one can buy upon the quais by the run- 
ning yard ; for example, Laharpe’s “ Cours de 
Ixitt^i'^ture,” and an endless edition of Rollin, 
whose tediousness seems to ooze out through 
their bindings. The cylindrical office-table, 
one of those masterpieces of veneered mahog- 
any which the Faubourg Saint-Antoine still 
keeps the secret of making, was surmounted 
by a globe of the world. 


The Days of My Youth, 


27 


Suddenly through the open window little 
Amedee saw the sycamore-tree in the yard. 
A young blackbird, who did not yet know 
the place, came and perched for an instant 
only upon one of its branches. 

We may fancy the tree saying to it : 

“ What are you doing here ? The Luxem- 
bourg is only a short distance from here, and 
is charming. There are children there mak- 
ing mud-pies, nurses upon the seats chatter- 
ing with the military, lovers promenading, 
holding hands. Go there, you simpleton !” 

The blackbird flew away and the university 
tree, once more solitary and alone, drooped 
its dispirited leaves. Amedee, in his confused 
childish desire for information, was just ready 
to ask why this sycamore looked so morose, 
when the door opened and M. Batifol ap- 
peared. The master of the school had a 
severe aspect, in spite of his almost indeco- 
rous name. He resembled a hippopotamus 
clothed in an ample black coat. He entered 
slowly and bowed in a dignified way to M. 
Violette, then seated himself in a leather arm - 
chair before his papers, and taking off his vel- 
vet skull-cap, revealed such a voluminous 
round, yellow baldness that little Amedee 
compared it with terror to the globe on the 
top of his desk. 

It w’as just the same thing ! These two 


28 


The Days of My Youth. 


round balls were twins ! There was even upon 
M. Batifol’s cranium an eruption of little red 
pimples, grouped almost exactly like an archi- 
pelago in the Pacific Ocean. 

“ Whom have I the honor ? " asked the 

schoolmaster, in an unctuous voice, an excel- 
lent voice for proclaiming names at the distri- 
bution of prizes. 

M. Violette is not a brave man. It was 
very foolish, but when the senior clerk called 
him into his office to do some work, he was 
always seized with a sort of stammering and 
shaking of the limbs. A person as imposing 
as M. Batifol was not calculated to give him 
assura^x^ce. Amedee was timid, too, like his 
father, and while the child, frightened by the 
resemblance of the sphere to M. Batifol’s bald 
liead, was already trembling, M. Violette, 
much agitated, was trying to think of some- 
thing to say, consequently he said nothing of 
any account. However, he ended by repeat- 
ing about the same as he had said to Mamma 
Gerard : “ His son was nearly seven years old 
'^^nd very backward, etc.” 

The teacher appeared to listen to M. Vio- 
lette with benevolent interest, inclining his 
geographical cranium every few seconds. In 
reality he was observing and judging his 
visitors. The father’s scanty overcoat, the 
rather pale face of the little boy, all betokened 




The Days of My Youth, 


29 


poverty. It simply meant a day scholar at 
thirty francs a month, nothing more. So M. 
Batifol shortened the “ speech that under 
like circumstances he addressed to his new 
pupils. 

He would take charge of his “young friend” 
(thirty francs a month, that is understood, and 
the child will bring his own luncheon in a 
little basket) who would first be placed in an 
elementary class. Certain fathers prefer, and 
they have reason to do so, that their sons 
should be half-boarders, with a healthy and 
abundant repast at noon. But M. Batifol did 
not insist upon it. His young friend would 
then be placed in the infant class, at first ; but 
he would be prepared there at once, ab ovo, to 
one day receive lessons in this University of 
France, alma parens (instruction in foreign 
languages not included in the ordinary price, 
naturally), which by daily study, competition 
between scholars (accomplishments, such as 
dancing, music, and fencing, to be paid for 
separately ; that goes without saying) prepare 
children for social life, and make men and 
citizens of them. 

M. Violette contented himself with the day 
school at thirty francs, and for a good reason. 
The affair was settled. Early the next morn- 
ing Amedee would enter the “ ninth prepara- 
tory.” 


30 


The Days of My Youth, 


“ Give me your hand, my young friend,” 
said the master, as father and son arose to 
take their leave. 

Amedee reached out his hand, and M. Bati- 
fol placed it in his, which was so heavy, large, 
and cold, that the child shivered at the con- 
tact, and fancied he was touching a leg of 
mutton of six or seven pounds weight, freshly 
killed, and sent from the butcher’s. 

Finally they left. It was ended. Early the 
next morning, Amedee, provided with a little 
basket, in which the old snuff-taker had put 
a little bottle of red wine, and some sliced 
veal, and jam tarts, presented himself at the 
boarding-school, to be prepared without delay 
for the teaching of the alma parens. 

The hippopotamus clothed in black did not 
take off his skull-cap this time, to the child’s 
great regret, for he wished to assure himself 
if the degrees of latitude and longitude were 
checked off in squares on M. Batifol’s cranium 
as they were on the terrestrial globe. He con- 
ducted his pupil to his class at once and pre- 
sented him to the master. 

“ Here is a new day scholar. Monsieur 
Tavernier. You will find out how far ad- 
vanced he is in reading and writing, if you 
please.” M. Tavernier was a tall young man 
with a sallow complexion, a bachelor who, if 
he had been living like his late father, a ser- 


The Days of My Youth. 


31 


geant of the gendarmes, in a pretty house 
surrounded by apple-trees and green grass, 
would not, perhaps, have had that papier 
mdche appearance, and would not have been 
dressed at eight o’clock in the morning in a 
black coat of the kind that we see hanging in 
the Morgue. M. Tavernier received the new- 
comer with a sickly smile, which disappeared 
as soon as M. Batifol left the room. 

“ Go and take your place in that empty 
seat there, in the third row,” said M. Taver- 
nier, in an indifferent tone. 

He deigned, however, to conduct Amedee 
to the seat which he was to occupy. Amedee’s 
neighbor, one of the future citizens preparing 
for social life — several with patches upon 
their trousers — had been bad enough to bring 
into class a handful of cockchafers. He was 
punished by a quarter of an hour’s standing 
up, which he did soon after, sulking at the 
foot of the sycamore-tree in the large court. 

“ You will soon see what a ‘ cur ’ he is,” 
whispered the pupil in disgrace as soon as 
the teacher had returned to his seat. 

M. Tavernier struck his ruler on the edge 
of his chair and having re-established silence, 
invited pupil Godard to recite his lesson. 

Pupil Godard, who was a chubby-faced fel- 
low with sleepy eyes, arose automatically and 
in one single stream, like a running tap, re- 


32 


The Days of My Youth. 


cited, without stopping to take breath, “The 
Wolf and the Lamb,” and rolled olf La Fon- 
taine’s fable like the thread from a bobbin run 
by steam. 

“ The-strongest-reason-is-always-the - best 
and - we -will - prove -it-at-once~a-lamb-was 
quenching- his-thirst - in-a-stream - of- pure 
running-water ” 

Suddenly Godard was confused, he hesi- 
tated. The machine had been badly oiled. 
There was something which obstructed the 
bobbin. 

“ In-a-stream-of - pure-running-water 

in-a-stream ” 

Then he stopped short, the tap was closed. 
Godard did not know his lesson, and he also 
was condemned to remain on guard under the 
sycamore during recess. 

After pupil Godard came pupil Grosdidier ; 
then Blanc, then Moreau (Gaston), then Mo- 
reau (Ernest), then Malepert ; then another, 
and another, who babbled with the same in- 
telligence and volubility, with the same pip- 
ing voice, this cruel and wonderful fable. It 
was as irritating and monotonous as a fine 
rain. All the pupils in the “ninth prepar- 
atory” were disgusted for fifteen years, at 
least, with this most exquisite of French 
poets. 

Little Amedee wanted to cry ; he listened 


The Days of My Youth. 


33 


with stupefaction blended with fright as the 
scholars by turns unwound their bobbins. To 
tliink that to-morrow he must do the same I 
He never would be able. M. Tavernier fright- 
ened him very much, too. The yellow-com- 
plexioned usher, seated nonchalantly in his 
arm-chair, who was not without pretension, in 
spite of his black coat with the “ take me out 
of pawn ” air, polished his nails, and only 
opened his mouth at times to utter a repri- 
mand or punishment. 

This was school then ! Am^dee recalled the 
pleasant reading lessons that the eldest of the 
Gerards had given him — that good Louise so 
wise and serious and only ten years old — 
pointing out his letters to him in a picture 
alphabet with a knitting-needle, always so pa- 
tient and kind. The child was overcome at 
the very first with a disgust for school, and 
gazed through the window which lighted the 
room at the noiselessly moving, large, indent- 
ed leaves of the melancholy sycamore. 

3 


CHAPTER III. 


One, two, three years rolled by without any- 
thing very remarkable happening to the in- 
habitants of the fifth story. 

The quarter had not changed, and it still 
had the appearance of a country-like fau- 
bourg. They had just erected, within gun- 
shot of the house where the Violettes and 
Gerards lived, a large five-story building, upon 
whose roof still trembled in the wind the 
masons' withered bouquets. But that was all. 
In front of them, on the lot “For Sale,” en- 
closed by rotten boards, where one could 
always see tufts of nettles and a goat tied to 
a stake, and upon the high wall above which 
by the end of April the lilacs hung in their 
perfumed clusters, the rains had not effaced 
this brutal declaration of love, written with a 
knife in the plaster : “ When Melie wishes she 
can have me,” and signed “ Eugene.” 

Three years had passed, and little Amedee 
had grown a trifle. At that time a child born 
in the centre of Paris — for example, in the 
labyrinth of infected streets about the Halles 


The Days of My YoiitJu 


35 


— would have grown up without having any 
idea of the change of seasons, other than by 
the state of the temperature and the narrow 
strip of sky which he could see by raising his 
head. Even to-day certain poor children — 
the poor never budge from their hiding-places 
— only learn of the arrival of winter by the 
odor of roasted chestnuts ; of spring by the 
boxes of gillyflowers in the fruiterer’s stall ; 
of summer, by the water-carts passing, and of 
autumn, by the heaps of oyster-shells at the 
doors of wine shops. The broad sky, with its 
confused shapes of cloud architecture,' the 
burning gold of the setting sun behind the 
masses of trees, the enchanting stillness of 
moonlight upon the river, all these grand and 
magnificent spectacles are for the delight of 
those who live in suburban quarters, or play 
there sometimes. The sons of people who 
work in buttons and jet spend their infancy 
playing on staircases that smell of lead, or in 
courts that resemble wells, and do not suspect 
that nature exists. At the outside they sus- 
pect that nature may exist when they see the 
horses on Palm Sunday decorated with bits of 
boxwood behind each ear. What matters it, 
after all, if the child has imagination ? A star 
reflected in a gutter will reveal to him an im- 
mense nocturnal poem ; and he will breathe all 
the intoxication of summer in the full-blown 


36 


The Days of My Youth. 


rose which the grisette from the next door lets 
hill from her hair. 

Amedee had had the good fortune of being 
born in that delicious and melancholy suburb 
of Paris which had not yet become haussman- 
nisie, and was full of wild and charming nooks. 

His father, the poor widower, could not be 
consoled, and tried to wear out his grief in 
long promenades ; going out on clear even- 
ings, holding his little boy by the hand, to- 
ward the more solitary places. They followed 
these fine boulevards, formerly in the suburbs, 
where there were giant elms, dating from the 
time of Louis XIV., ditches full of grass, 
ruined palisades, showing through their open- 
ing market-gardens where melons glistened in 
the rays of the setting sun. Both were silent ; 
the father lost in reveries, Amedee absorbed 
in the confused dreams of a child. They went 
long distances, passing the Barriere d’Enfer, 
reaching unknown parts, which produced the 
same effect upon an inhabitant of Rue Mont- 
martre as the places upon an old map of the 
world, marked with the mysterious words 
Mare ignotum^ would upon a savant of the 
middle ages. There were many houses in this 
ancient suburb ; curious old buildings, nearly 
all of one story. Sometimes they passed a 
public house painted in a sinister wine color ; 
or else a garden hedged in by acacias, at the 


The Days of My Youth. 


37 


fork of two roads, with arbors and a sign con- 
sisting of a very small windmill, at the end of 
a pole, turning in the fresh evening breeze. 
It was almost country ; the grass grew upon 
the sidewalks, springing up in the road be- 
tween the broken pavements. A poppy 
flashed here and there upon the tops of the 
low walls. They met very few people ; now 
and then some poor person, a good woman in 
a cap dragging along a crying child, a work- 
man burdened with his tools, some belated in- 
valid, and sometimes in the middle of the 
sidewalk, in a cloud of dust, a flock of ex- 
hausted sheep bleating desperately, and nipped 
in the legs by dogs hurrying them toward the 
abattoir. The father and son would walk 
straight ahead until it was dark under the 
trees, then they would retrace their steps, the 
sharp air stinging their faces. Those ancient 
hanging street lamps, the tragic lanterns of 
the time of the Terror, were suspended at 
long intervals in the avenue, mingling their 
dismal twinkle with the pale gleams of the 
green twilight sky. 

These sorrowful promenades with his mel- 
ancholy companion would commonly end a 
tiresome day at M. BatifoFs school. Am^dee 
was now in the “ seventh,” and knew already 
that the phrase, “the will of God,” could not 
be turned into Latin by bo?utas divina^ and 


38 


The Days of My Youth. 


that the word cornu was not declinable. These 
long silent hours spent at his school-desk, or 
beside a person absorbed with grief, might 
have become fatal to the child’s disposition, 
had it not been for his good friends, the Ge- 
rards. He went to see them as often as he was 
able, a spare hour now and then, and most of 
the day on Thursdays. The engraver’s house 
was always full of good-nature and gayety, 
and Amddee felt comfortable and really hap- 
py there. 

The good Gerards, besides their Louise and 
Maria, to say nothing of Amedee, whom they 
looked upon as one of the family, had now 
taken charge of a fourth child, a little girl, by 
the name of Rosine, who was precisely the 
same age as their youngest. 

This is the way it happened. Above the 
Gerards, in one of the mansards upon the 
sixth floor, lived a printer named Combarieu, 
with his wife or mistress — the concierge did 
not know which, nor did it matter much. 
The woman had just deserted him, leaving a 
child of eight years. One could expect noth- 
ing better of a creature who, according to the 
concierge, fed her husband and child upon 
charcuterie^ to spare herself the trouble of get- 
ting dinner, and passed the entire day with 
uncombed hair, in a dressing sacque, reading 
novels, and telling her fortune with cards. 


The Days of My Youth, 


39 


Tlie grocer’s daughter declared she had met 
her one evening at a dancing-hall, seated with 
a fireman before a salad bowl of wine prepared 
in the French fashion. 

During the day Combarieu, although a red- 
hot Republican, sent his little girl to the Sis- 
ters ; but he went out every evening with a 
mysterious air and left the child alone. The 
concierge even uttered in a low voice, with 
the romantic admiration which that class of 
people have for conspirators, the terrible word 
“ secret society,” and asserted that the printer 
had a musket concealed under his straw bed. 

These revelations were of a nature to excite 
M. Gerard’s sympathy in favor of his neighbor, 
for the coup d'itat and the proclamation of 
the Empire had irritated him very much. 
Had it not been his melancholy duty to en- 
grave, the day after the second of December — 
he must feed his family first of all — a Bona- 
partist allegory entitled, “ The Uncle and the 
Nephew,” where one saw France extending 
its hand to Napoleon 1. and Prince Louis, 
while soaring above the group was an eagle 
with spreading wings, holding in one of his 
claws the cross of the Legion of Honor? » 

One day the engraver asked his wife, as he 
lighted his pipe — he had giyen up Abd-el- 
Kader and smoked now a Barbes — if they 
ought not to interest themselves a little in the 


40 The Days of My ^outh. 

abandoned child. It needed nothing more to 
arouse the good woman, who had already said 
more than once : “ What a pity ! ” as she saw 
little Rosine waiting for her father in the con- 
cierge lodge, sound asleep in a chair before the 
stove. She coaxed the child to play with her 
children. Rosine was very pretty, with bright 
eyes, a droll little Parisian nose, and a mass of 
straw-colored curl)’’ hair escaping from her 
cap. The little rogue let fly quite often some 
gutter expression, such as “ hang it ! ” or “tol- 
de-rol-dol ! ” at which Madame Gerard would 
exclaim “ What do I hear, mademoiselle ? ” 
but she was intelligent and soon corrected her- 
self. 

One Sunday morning Combarieu, having 
learned of their kindness to his child, made a 
visit to thank them. 

Very dark, with a livid complexion, all hair 
and beard, and trying to look like the head of 
Jesus Christ, in his long black blouse he per- 
fectly realized the type of a club conspirator, 
a representative of the working-men. A Free- 
mason, probably ; a solemn drunkard, who 
became intoxicated oftener on big words 
than native wine, and spoke in a loud, preten- 
tious voice, gazing before him with large, 
stupid eyes bathed in a sort of ecstasy; his 
whole person made one think of a boozy 
preacher. He immediately inspired the en- 


The Days of My Youth. 4 r 

graver with respect, and dazzled him by the 
fascination which the audacious exert over the 
timid. M. Gerard thought that he discerned 
in Combarieu one of those superior men 
whom a cruel fate had caused to be born 
amongst the lower class and in whom poverty 
had stifled genius. 

Enlightened as to the artist’s political pref- 
erences by the bowl of his pipe, Combarieu 
complacently eulogized himself. Upon his 
own admission he had at first been foolish 
enough to dream of a universal brotherhood, 
a holy alliance of the people. He had even 
written poems which he had published him- 
self, notably an “ Ode to Poland,” and an 
“ Epistle to Berenger,” which latter had 
evoked an autograph letter from the illustrious 
song-writer. But he was no longer such a " 
simpleton. 

“When one has seen what we have seen 
during June, and on the 2d of December, it is 
no longer a question of sentiment.” Here the 
engraver, as an hospitable host, brought a 
bottle of wine and two glasses. “ No, Mon- 
sieur Gerard, I thank you, I take nothing be- 
tween my meals. The working-men have 
been deceived too often, and at the next elec- 
tion we will not let the bourgeois strangle the 
Republic. (M. Gerard having uncorked the 
bottle.) Only a finger! Enough !. enough ! 


42 


The Days of My Youth. 


simply so as not to refuse you. Whilst wait- 
ing let us prepare ourselves. Just now the 
Eastern question muddles us, and behold 
‘ Badinguet,’ * with a big affair upon his hands. 
You have some wine here that is worth drink- 
ing. If he loses one battle, he is done for. 
One glass more ? Ah ! you make me depart 
from my usual custom — absolutely done for. 
But this time we will keep our eyes open. 
No half measures ! We will return to the 
great methods of ’93 — the Committee of Pub- 
lic Safety, the Law of Suspects, the Revolu- 
tionary Tribunal, every damned one of them ! 
and if it is necessary, a permanent guillotine ! 
To your good health ! ” 

So much energy frightened Father Gerard 
a little ; for in spite of his Barbes pipe-bowl 
he was not a genuine red-hot republican. He 
dared not protest, however, and blushed a little 
as he thought that the night before an editor 
had proposed to him to engrave a portrait of 
the new Empress, very decollete, and showing 
her famous shoulders, and that he had not said 
no ; for his daughters needed new shoes, and 
his wife had declared the day before that she 
had not a dress to put on. 

So for several months he had four children 
— Amed^e, Louise, Maria, and little Rose Com- 
barieu — to make a racket in his apartment. 

* A nickname given Napoleon III. 


The Days of My Youth. 


43 


Certainly they were no longer babies ; they 
did not play at making calls or chase the old 
fur hat around the room ; they were more sen- 
sible, and the old furniture had a little rest. 
And it was time, for all the chairs were lame, 
two of the larger ones had lost an arm each, 
and the Empire sofa had lost the greater part 
of its hair through the rents in its dark green 
velvet covering. The unfortunate square 
piano had had no pity shown it ; more out of 
tune and asthmatic than ever, it was now al- 
ways open, and one could read above the yel- 
low and worn-out key-board a once famous 
name — “ Sebastian Erard, Manufacturer of 
Pianos and Harps for S.A.R. Madame la 
Duchesse de Berry." Not only Louise, the 
eldest of the Gerards — a large girl now, hav- 
ing been to her first communion, dressing her 
hair in bands, and wearing white waists — not 
only Louise, who had become a good musician, 
had made the piano submit to long tortures, 
but her sister Maria, and Amedee also, already 
played the Bouquet de BaV^ or ^‘‘Papa, les ftits 
hateauxP Rosine, too, in her quality of street 
urchin, knew all the popular songs, and spent 
entire hours in picking out the airs with one 
finger upon the old instrument. 

Ah ! the songs of those days, the last end of 
romanticism ! the make-believe ‘‘ Orientales 
“Odes and ballads," by the dozen; “Contes 


44 


The Days of My Youth. 


d’Espagne et d’ltalie,” with their pages, tur- 
rets, chatelaines; bull-fighters, Spanish ladies; 
vivandieres, beguiled away from their homes 
under the pale of the church, “near a stream 
of running water by a gay and handsome che- 
valier,” and many other such silly things — 
AmMee will remember them always ! They 
bring back to him, clearly and strongly, cer- 
tain happy hours in his childhood ! They 
make him smell again at times even the odor 
that pervaded the Gerards^ house. A mule- 
driver's song will bring up before his vision 
the engraver working at his plate before the 
curtainless window on a winter’s day. It 
snows in the streets, and large white flakes are 
slowly falling behind the glass ; but the room, 
ornamented with pictures and busts, is lighted 
and heated by a bright coke fire. Amedee 
can see himself seated in a corner by the fire, 
learning by heart a page of the “ Epitome,” 
which he must recite the next morning at M. 
Batifol’s. Maria and Rosine are crouched at his 
feet, with a box of glass beads, which they are 
stringing into a necklace. It was comfortable ; 
the whole apartment smelled of the engraver’s 
pipe, and in the dining-room, whose door is 
half opened, Louise is at the piano, singing in 
a fresh voice some lines where “Castilla” 
rhymes with “Mantilla,” and “Andalous” 
with “jealous,” while her agile fingers played 


The Days of My Youth. 45 

on the old instrument an accompaniment sup- 
posed to imitate bells and castanets. 

Or perhaps it is a radiant morning in June, 
and they are in the dining-room ; the balcony 
door is open wide and a large hornet buzzes 
loudly in the vine. Louise is still at the pi- 
ano ; she is singing this time, and trying to 
reach the low notes of a dramatic romance 
where a Corsican child is urged on to ven- 
geance by his father : 

*‘Tiens, prends ma carabine! 

Sur toi veillera Dieu — ” 

This is a great day/ the one when Mam- 
ma Gerard makes her gooseberry preserves. 
There is a large basin already full of it on the 
table. What a delicious odor ! A perfume of 
roses mixed with that of warm sugar. Maria 
and Rosine have just slipped into the kitchen, 
the gourmands ! But Louise is a serious per- 
son, and will not interrupt her singing for such 
a trifle. She continues to sing in a low voice : 
and at the moment when Amedee stands 
speechless with admiration before her, as she 
is scolding in a terrible tone and playing 
dreadful chords, lo ! and behold ! here come 
the children, both with pink mustaches, and 
voluptuously licking their lips. 

Ah ! these were happy hours to Amedee. 
They consoled him for the interminable days 
at M. Batifol’s. 


46 


The Days of My Youth. 


After having passed the “ ninth preparatory,” 
under the direction of the indolent M. Taver- 
nier, always busy polishing his nails like a 
Chinese mandarin, the child had for a pro- 
fessor in the “ eighth ” Pere Montandeuil, a 
poor fellow stupefied by thirty years of teach- 
ing, who secretly employed all his spare hours 
in composing five-act tragedies, and who, by 
dint of carrying to and going for his manu- 
scripts at the Odeon, ended by marrying the 
door-keeper’s daughter. In the ‘‘seventh” 
Amedee groaned under the tyranny of M. 
Prudhommod, a country man with a smattering 
of Latin and a terribly violent temper, throw- 
ing at the class a plough-boy’s insults. Now 
he had entered the “sixth,” under M. Bance, 
an unfortunate fellow about twenty years old, 
ugly, lame, and foolishly timid, whom M. Bati- 
fol severely reproached with not having made 
himself respected, and whose eyes filled with 
tears every morning when, upon entering the 
school-room, he was obliged to first efface with 
a cloth a caricature of himself made by some 
one of his pupils. 

Everything in M. Batifol’s school — the gro- 
tesque and miserable teachers, the ferocious 
and cynical pupils, the dingy, dusty, and ink- 
stained rooms— saddened and displeased Am6- 
dee. Although very intelligent, he was dis- 
gusted with the sort of instruction, served out 


The Days of My YotUh. 


47 


in portions, like soldier’s rations, and would 
have lost courage but for his little friend, 
Louise Gerard, who out of sheer kindness 
constituted herself his school-mistress, guiding 
and inspiriting him, and working hard at the 
rudiments of “ L’homond’s Grammar ” and 
“Alexandre’s Dictionary,” to help the child 
struggle with his “ De Viris.” Unfortunate 
indeed is he who has not had, during his in- 
fancy, a petticoat near him — the sweet influ- 
ence of a woman. He will always have some- 
thing coarse in his mind and hard in his heart. 
Without this excellent and kind Louise, 
Amedee would have been exposed to this 
danger. His mother was dead, and M. Vio- 
lette, alas ! was always overwhelmed with his 
grief, and, it must be admitted, somewhat ne- 
glected his little son. 

The poor widower could not be consoled. 
Since his wife’s death he had grown ten years 
older and his refractory lock of hair had be- 
come perfectly white. His Lucie had been his 
sole joy in his commonplace and obscure life. 
She was so pretty, so sweet ! such a good man- 
ager, dressing upon nothing, and making 
things seem luxurious with even only one 
flower ! M. Violette only lived on this dear 
and cruel souvenir, living his humble idyl 
over again in his mind. 

He had ten years of this happiness. One 


48 


The Days of My Youth. 


of liis comrades took him to pass one evening 
with an old friend who was captain in the 
Invalides. The worthy man had lost an arm 
at Waterloo ; he was a relative of Lucie, a 
good-natured old fellow, amiable and lively, 
delighting in arranging his apartments into 
a sort of Bonapartist chapel and giving little 
entertainments with cake and punch, while 
Lucie’s mother, a cousin of the captain, did 
the honors. M. Violette immediately observ- 
ed the young girl, seated under a “ Bataille des 
Pyramides ” with two swords crossed above it, 
a red pink in her hair. It was in mid-summer, 
and through the open window one could see 
the magnificent moonlight which shone upon 
the esplanade, and made the huge cannon shine. 
They were playing charades, and when it came 
Lucie’s turn to be questioned in the midst of 
all the guests, M. Violette, to relieve her of her 
embarrassment, replied so awkwardly that 
they all exclaimed, “ Now, then ! that is cheat- 
ing I ” With what naive grace and bashful 
coquetry she served the tea, going from one 
table to another, cup in hand, followed by the 
one-arm captain with silver epaulets, carry- % 
ing the plum cake ! In order to see her 
again, M. Violette paid the captain visit after 
visit. But the greater part of time he only 
saw the old soldier, who told him of his vic- 
tories and conquests, of the attack of the re- 


The Days of My Youth. 


49 


doubt at Borodino, and the frightful swearing 
of the dashing Murat, King of Naples, as he 
urged the squadrons on to the rescue. At last, 
one beautiful Sunday in autumn, he found 
himself alone with the young girl in the 
“ veteran of the Old Guard’s ” private garden. 
He seated himself beside Lucie on a stone 
seat ; he told her his love, with the profound 
gaze of the little Corporal, in bronzed plaster, 
resting upon them ; and full of delicious con- 
fusion, she replied to him, Speak to mamma,” 
dropping her bewildered eyes and gazing at 
the bed of china aster whose box-wood border 
traced out the form of a cross of the Legion 
of Honor. 

And all this was effaced, lost forever ! The 
captain was dead ; Lucie’s mother was dead, 
and Lucie herself, his beloved Lucie, was dead, 
after giving him six years of cloudless happi- 
ness. 

Certainly, he would never marry again. 
Oh ! never! No woman had ever existed or 
would ever exist for him but his poor darling, 
sleeping in the Montparnasse Cemetery, whose 
grave he visited every Sunday with a little 
watering-pot concealed under his coat. 

He recalled, with a shiver of disgust, how a 
few months after Lucie’s death, one stifling 
evening in July, he was seated upon a bench 
in the Luxembourg, listening to the drums 
4 


The Days of My Youth. 


50 

beating a retreat under the trees, when a 
woman came and took a seat beside him and 
looked at him steadily. Surprised by her sig- 
nificant look, he replied, to the question that 
she addressed to him, timidly and at the same 
time boldly. “ So this is the way that you 
take the air ?” And when she ended by ask- 
ing him, “ Come to my house,” he had fol- 
lowed her. But he had hardly entered when 
the past all came back to him, and he felt a 
stifled feeling of distress. Falling into a chair 
he sobbed, burying his face in his hands. His 
grief was so violent that, by a feminine in- 
stinct of pity, the wretched creature took his 
head in her arms, saying, in a consoling tone, 
“There, cry ! cry ! it will do you good ! ” and 
rocked him like an infant. At last he disen- 
gaged himself from this caress, which made 
hirti ashamed of himself, and throwing what 
little money he had about him upon the top 
of the bureau, he went away and returned to 
his home, where he hastily went to bed and 
cried to his heart’s content, as he gnawed his 
pillow. Oh ! horrible memories ! 

No! never a wife, no mistress, nothing! 
Now his grief was his wife, and lived with 
him. 

The widower’s morning awakening was 
frightful above all things else — his awakening 
in the large bed that now had but one pillow. 


The Days of My Youth. 


51 


It was there that he had once had the exquis- 
ite pleasure of watching his dear Lucie every 
morning when asleep ; for she did not like to 
get up early, and sometimes he had jokingly 
scolded her for it. What serenity upon this 
delicate sweet face with its closed eyes nest- 
ling among her beautiful disordered hair! 
How chaste this lovely young wife was in her 
unconstraint ! She had thrown one of her 
arms outside of the covering, and the neck of 
her nightrobe having slipped down, showed 
such a pure white shoulder and delicate neck. 
He leaned over the half-opened mouth, which 
exhaled a warm and living odor, something 
like the perfume of a flower, to breathe it, and 
a tender pride swept over him when he thought 
that she was his, his wife, this delicious creat- 
ure who was almost a child yet, and that her 
heart was given to him forever. He could 
not resist it ; he touched his young wife’s lips 
with his own. She trembled under the kiss 
and opened her eyes, when the astonishment 
of the awakening was at once transformed into 
a happy smile as she met her husband’s 
glance. Oh ! blissful moment ! But in spite 
of all, one must be sensible. He recalled that 
the milkmaid had left at daybreak her pot of 
milk at the door of their apartment ; that the 
fire was not lighted, and that he must be at the 
office early, as the time for promotions was 


52 


The Days of My Youth. 


drawing near. Giving another kiss to the half 
asleep Lucie, he said to her, in a coaxing tone 
of voice, “Now then, Lucie, my child, it is 
half-past eight Up! up with you, lazy little 
one ! ” 

How could he console himself for such lost 
happiness ? He had his son, yes — and he 
loved him very much — but the sight of Ame- 
d6e increased M. Violette’s grief ; for thecnild 
grew to look like his mother every day. 


CHAPTER IV. 


Three or four times a year M. Violette, ac- 
companied by his son, paid a visit to an uncle 
of his deceased wife, whose heir Am^dee 
might some day become. 

M. Isidore Gaufre had founded and made 
successful a large house for Catholic books 
and pictures, to which he had added aji im- 
portant agency for the sale of all kinds of 
religious objects. This vast establishment 
was called, by a stroke of genius of its pro- 
prietor, “ Bon Marche des Paroisses," and was 
famous among all the French clergy. It ended 
by occupying the principal part of the house 
and all the out-buildings of an old hotel on 
Rue Servandoni, constructed in the pompous 
and magnificent style of the latter part of the 
seventeenth century. He did a great business 
there. All day long priests, and clerical look- 
ing gentlemen, mounted the long flight of 
steps that led to a spacious first floor, lighted 
by large high windows surmounted by gro- 
tesque heads. There the long-bearded mis- 
sionaries came to purchase their cargoes of 


54 


The Days of My Youth. 


glass bead or imitation coral rosaries, before 
embarking for the East, or the Gaboon, to 
convert the negroes and the Chinese. The 
member of the tiers-^tat, draped in a long 
chocolate-colored straight dress, or frock-coat, 
holding a gigantic umbrella under his arm, 
procured, dirt cheap and by the thousand, 
pamphlets of religious tenets. The country 
curate, visiting Paris, arranged for the imme- 
diate delivery of a remonstrance, in electro- 
type, Byzantine style, signing a series of long- 
dated bills, contracting, by zeal supplemented 
by some ready cash, to fulfil his liabilities, 
through the generosity of the faithful ones. 
There, also, a young director of consciences 
came to look for some devotional work — for 
example, the i2mo, entitled “ Widows’ Tears 
Wiped Away,” by Saint Franpois de Sales — 
for some penitent. The representative from 
some deputation from a devoutly Catholic 
district would solicit a reduction upon a pur- * 
chase of the ‘‘ Twelve Stations of the Cross,” 
hideously daubed ; which he proposed to pre- 
sent to the parishes which his adversaries had 
accused of being Voltaireans. A brother of 
the Christian Doctrine, or a sister of Saint 
Vincent de Paul would bargain for catechisms 
for their schools. From time to time, even a 
prince of the church, a bishop with aristo- 
cratic mien, enveloped in an ample gown with 


The Days of My Youth. 


55 


his hat surrounded with a green cord and 
golden tassels, would mysteriously shut him- 
self up in M. Isidore Gaufre’s office for an 
hour ; and then would be reconducted to the 
top of the steps by the cringing proprietor, 
profuse with his Monseigneur,” and obse- 
quiously bowing under the haughty benedic- 
tion of two fingers in a violet glove. 

It was certainly not from sympathy that M. 
Violette had kept up his relations with his 
wife’s uncle; for M. Gaufre, who was servilely 
polite to all those in whom he had an interest, 
was usually disdainful, sometimes even inso- 
lent, to those who were of no use to him. 
During his niece’s life he had troubled himself 
very little about her, and had only given her 
for a wedding present an ivory crucifix with a 
shell for holy water, such as he sold by the 
gross to be used in convents. A self-made 
man, having already amassed — so they said — 
a considerable fortune, M. Gaufre held in very 
low estimation this poor devil of a common- 
place employee whose slow advancement was 
doubtless due to the fact that he was lazy and 
incapable. From the greeting that he re- 
ceived, M. Violette suspected the poor opin- 
ion that M. Gaufre had of him^ If he went 
there in spite of his natural pride it was only 
on his son’s account. For M. Gaufre was 
rich, and he was not young. Perhaps — who 




The Days of My Youth, 


56 

could tell ? — he might not forget Am6d4e, his 
nephew, in his will ? It was necessary for him 
to see the child occasionally, and M. Violette, 
in pursuance of his paternal duty, condemned 
himself, three or four times a year, to the in- 
fliction of a visit at the “ Bon Marche des 
Paroisses.” 

The hopes that M. Violette had formed as 
to his son’s inheriting from M. Gaufre were 
very problematical ; for the father, whom M. 
Gaufre had not been able to avoid receiving 
at his table occasionally, had been struck, 
even shocked, by the familiar and despotic 
tone of the old merchant’s servant, a superb 
Normandy woman of about twenty-five years, 
answering to the royal name of Berenice, The 
impertinent ways of this robust woman betrayed 
her position in her master’s house, as much as 
the diamonds that glittered in her ears. This 
creature would surely watch the will of her 
patron, a sexagenarian with an apoplectic 
neck, which became the color of dregs of wine 
after a glass of brandy. 

M. Gaufre, although very practical and a 
church-warden at Saint Sulpice, had always 
had a taste for liaisons. His wife, during her 
life — he had been a widower for a dozen years 
— had been one of those unfortunate beings of 
whom people said, “ This poor lady is to be 
pitied ; she can never keep a servant.” She 


The Days of My Youth, 


57 


had in vain taken girls from the provinces 
without beauty and certified to be virtuous. 
One by one, a Flemish girl, an Alsatian, three 
Nivernaise, two from Picardy ; even a young 
girl from Beauce, hired on account of her cer- 
tificate, as “the best-behaved girl in the vil- 
lage," were unsparingly devoured by the min- 
otaur of Rue Servandoni. All were turned out 
of doors with a conscientious blow in the face, 
by the justly irritated spouse. When he be- 
came a widower he gave himself up to his liai- 
sons ‘in perfect security, but without scandal, 
of course, as to his passion for servants. New 
country-girls, wearing strange head-dresses, 
responded favorably, in various patois^ to his 
guilty propositions. An Alsatian bow reigned 
six months ; a Breton cap more than a year ; 
but at last what must inevitably take place 
happened. The beautiful Berenice definitely 
bound with fetters of iron the old libertine. 
She was now all-powerful in the house, where 
she reigned supreme through her beauty and 
her talent for cooking ; and as she saw her 
master’s face grow more congested at each 
repast, she made her preparations for the fut- 
ure. Who could say but that M. Gaufre, a real 
devotee after all, would develop conscientious 
scruples some day, and end in a marriage, in 
extremis ? 

M. Violette knew all this ; nevertheless it 


S8 


The Days of My Youth. 


was important that Amedee should not be for- 
gotten by his old relative, and sometimes, 
though rarely, he would leave his office a little 
earlier than usual, and go and get his son as 
he left the Batifol boarding-school, and take 
him to the Rue Servandoni. 

The large parlors, transformed into stores, 
where one could still see upon forgotten pan- 
els, rococo shepherds offering doves to their 
shepherdesses, were always a new subject 
of surprise to little Amedee. After passing 
through the book-store, where thousands of lit- 
tle volumes with figured gray and yellow covers 
crowded the shelves, and boys in ecru linen 
blouses were rapidly tying up bundles, one 
entered the jewelry department. There, un- 
der beautiful glass cases, sparkled all the glit- 
tering display and showy luxury of the church, 
golden tabernacles where the paschal lamb re- 
posed in a flaming triangle, censers with quad- 
ruple chains, stoles and chasubles, heavy 
with embroidery, enormous candelabras, os- 
tensories and drinking-cups incrusted with 
enamel and false precious stones — before all 
these splendors the child, who had read the 
“Thousand and One Nights,” believed that 
he had entered Aladdin’s cave, or Aboul-Cas- 
sem’s pit. From this glittering array one 
passed, without transition, into the sombre 
depot of ecclesiastical vestments. Here all 


The Days of My Youth. 


59 


was black. One only saw piles of cassocks 
and pyramids of black hats. Two manikins, 
one clothed in a cardinal’s purple robe, the 
other in episcopalian violet, threw a little 
color over the gloomy show. 

But the large hall with painted statues 
stupefied Am^dee. They were all there, stat- 
ues of all the saints in little chapels placed 
promiscuously upon the shelves in rows. 

No more hierarchy. The Evangelist had 
for a neighbor a little Jesuit saint — an upstart 
of yesterday. The unfortunate Fourier had 
at his side the Virgin Mary. The Saviour of 
men elbowed Saint Labre. They were of 
plaster run into moulds, or roughly carved in 
wood, and were colored with paint as glaring 
as the red of a liquor saloon or of a barber’s 
blue shade, and covered with vulgar gildings. 
Chin in the air, ecstatic eyes shining with var- 
nish, horribly ugly and all new, they were 
drawn up in line like recruits at the roll-call, 
the mitred bishop, the martyr carrying his 
palm. Saint Agnes embracing her lamb, Saint 
Roch with his dog and shells. Saint John the 
Baptist in his sheep-skin, and, most ridiculous 
of all, poor Vincent de Paul carrying three 
naked children in his arms like a midwife’s 
advertisement. 

This frightful exhibition, which was of the 
nature of the Tussaud Museum or a masque- 


6o 


The Days of My Youth, 


rade, positively scared Amedee. He had re- 
cently been to his first communion, and was 
still burning with the mystical fever, but so 
much ugliness offended his already fastidious 
taste and threw him into his first doubt. 

One day about five o’clock, M. Violette and 
his son arrived at the “ Bonne Marche des 
Paroisses,” and found Uncle Isidore in the 
room where the painted statues were kept, 
superintending the packing of a Saint Michel. 
The last customer of the day was just leav- 
ing, the Bishop in partibus of Trebizonde, bless- 
ing M. Gaufre. The little apoplectic man, 
the giver of holy water, is now alone with 
his clerks, and is under no restraint any 
longer. 

“ Pay attention, you confounded wretch ! ” 
cried he to the young man just ready to lay 
the archangel in the shavings. “ You were 
going to break the dragon’s tail.” 

Then noticing AmMee and M. Violette who 
had just entered : 

*‘Ah! It is you Violette! Good-day! Good- 
day, Amedee ! You came at an unlucky time. 
It is shipping day with us. I am in a great 
hurry — Eh! Monsieur Combier by your leave, 
Monsieur Combier ! Do not forget the three 
dozen of the * Apparition de la Salette ’ in 
stucco for Grenoble, with twenty-five per 
cent, reduction upon the bill — Are you work- 


The Days of My Youth 


6i 


ing h ard AmMee ? What do you say ? He 
was first and assisted at the feast of Saint 
Charlemagne ! Now then, so much the better 1 
— J ules, did you send the six chandeliers and the 
plated pix and the Stations of the Cross, No, 
2 , to the Dames du Sacre-Coeur d‘Alencons ? 
What, not yet ? But the order was three days 
ago ! You must hurry, I tell you ’ — You can 
see, Violette, I am overflowing with work — 
but come in here a moment.” 

After having once more ordered his book- 
keeper, a captive in his glass case, to send the 
officers the notes that the cure of Sourdeval 
had allowed to go to protest, Uncle Isidore 
ushered M. Violette and his son into his 
office. 

It was an ancient room and M. Gaufre, who 
aimed at the austere, had made it gloomier 
still by a safe, and black hair-cloth furniture, 
which seemed as if taken from a vestry-room. 
The pretty, high, and oval apartment, with its 
large window, opening upon a garden, its 
ceiling painted in light rosy clouds, its wood- 
work ornamented with wreaths and quivers, 
still preserved some of the charm and elegance 
of former days. Amedee would have been 
amused there, if Uncle Isidore, who had seat- 
ed himself before his desk, had not launched 
at once an unkind question at M Violette. 

‘‘ By the way, have you obtained the promo- 


62 The Days of My Youth. 

tion that you counted so much upon last 
year ? ” 

‘‘ Unfortunately, no, Monsieur Gaufre. You 
know what the Administration is.” 

“ Yes, it is slow ; but you are not over- 
whelmed with work however. While in a 
business like this — what cares, what annoy- 
ances 1 I sometimes envy you. You can take 
an hour to cut your pens. Well, what is 
wanted of me now ?” 

The head of a clerk with a pencil behind 
his ear, appeared through the half-open door. 

“ M. le Superieur of Foreign Missions wishes 
to speak with Monsieur.” 

‘*You can see ! Not one minute to myself. 
Another time, my dear Violette. Adieu, my 
little man — it is astonishing how much he 
grows to look like Lucie ! You must come and 
dine with me some Sunday, without ceremony. 
Berenice’s soufle au fromage is something 
delicious ! Let M. le Superieur come in.” 

M. Violette took his departure, displeased 
at his useless visit and irritated against Uncle 
Isidore, who had been hardly civil. 

“ That man is a perfect egotist,” thought 
he, sadly ; “ and that girl has him in her 
clutclies. My poor Amedee will have nothing 
from him.” 

Amedee himself was not interested in his 
uncle’s fortune. He was just then a pupil in 


The Days of My Youth, 


63 


the “ fourth,” which follows the same studies 
as the Lycee Henri IV. Having suddenly 
grown tall, he was annoyed at wearing short 
pantaloons, and had already- renounced all 
infantile plays. The dangling crows which 
illustrated the pages of his Burnouf grammar 
were all dated the previous year, and he had 
entirely renounced feeding silk-worms in his 
desk. Everything pointed to his not being a 
very practical man. Geometry disgusted him, 
and as for dates, he could not remember one. 
On holidays he liked to walk by himself 
through quiet streets ; he read poems at the 
book-stalls, and lingered in the Luxembourg 
to see the sun set. Destined to be a dreamer 
and a sentimentalist — so much the worse for 
you, poor Amedee ! 

He went very often to the Gerards, but he 
no longer called his little friends “ thou.” 
Louise was now seventeen years old, thin, 
without color, and with a lank figure ; de- 
cidedly far from pretty. People, in speaking 
of her, began to say, “ She has beautiful eyes 
and is an excellent musician.” Her sister 
Maria was twelve years 0I4 and a perfect little 
rosebud. 

As to the neighbor’s little girl, Rosine 
Combarieu, she had disappeared. One day 
the printer suddenly departed without saying 
a word to anybody, and took his child with 


64 


The Days of My Youth. 


him. The concierge stated that he was con- 
cerned in some political plot, and was obliged 
to leave the house in the night. They be- 
lieved him to be concealed in some small 
town. 

Accordingly, Father Gerard was not angry 
with him for fleeing without taking leave of 
them. The conspirator had kept all his pres- 
tige in the eyes of the engraver, who, by a 
special run of ill luck, was always engaged by 
a publisher of Bonapartist works, and was en- 
gaged at that moment upon a portrait of the 
Prince Imperial, in the uniform of a corporal 
of the Guards, with an immense bear-skin cap 
upon his childish head. 

Father Gerard was growing old. His beard, 
formerly of a reddish shade, and what little 
hair there was remaining upon his head, had 
become silvery white ; that wonderful white 
which, like a tardy recompense to red-faced 
people, becomes their full-blooded faces so 
well. The good man felt the weight of years, 
as did his wife, whose flesh increased in such 
a troublesome way that she was forced to pant 
heavily when she seated herself after climbing 
the five flights. Father Gerard grew old like 
everything that surrounded him ; like the 
house opposite, that he had seen built, and 
that no longer had the air of a new building; 
like his curious old furniture, his mended 


The Days of My Youth, 


65 


crockery, and his engravings, yellow with age, 
the frames of which had turned red ; like the 
old Erard piano, upon which Louise, an ac- 
complished performer, now was playing a set 
of Beethoven’s “ Waltzes ” and Mendelssohn’s 
“ Songs Without Words.” This poor old ser- 
vant now had only the shrill, trembling tones 
of a harmonica. 

The poor artist grew old, and he was uneasy 
as to the future ; for he had not known how 
to manage like his school-friend, the intrigu- 
ing Damourette, who had formerly cheated 
him out of the prix de Rome by a favor, and 
who now played the gentleman at the Insti- 
tute, in his embroidered coat, ^and received all 
the good orders. He, the simpleton, had sad- 
dled himself with a family, and although he 
had drudged like a slave he had laid nothing 
aside. One day he might be stricken with 
apoplexy and leave his widow without re- 
sources, and his two daughters without a 
dowry. He sometimes thought of all this as 
he filled his pipe, and it was not pleasant. 

If M. Gerard grew gloomy as lie grew older, 
M. Violette became mournful. He was more 
than forty years old now. What a decline ! 
Does grief make the years count double'? 
The widower was a mere wreck. His rebel- 
lious lock of hair had become a dirty gray, 
and always hung over his right eye, and he no 
5 


66 


The Days of My Youth. 


longer took the trouble to toss it behind his 
ear. His hands trembled and he felt his 
memory leaving him. He grew more taci- 
turn and silent than ever and seemed inter- 
ested in nothing, not even his son’s studies. 
He returned home late, ate little at dinner, 
and then went out again with a tottering step 
to pace the dark, gloomy streets. At the office 
where he still did his work mechanically, he 
was a doomed man ; he would never be elected 
chief assistant. “ What depravity ! ” said one 
of his fellow clerks, a young man with a 
bright future, protected by the head of the 
department, who went to the races and had 
not his equal in imitating the “ Gnouf ! 
gnouf ! ” of Grassot, the actor. “ A man of 
his age does not decline so rapidly without 
good cause. It is not natural !” What is it, 
then, that has reduced M. Violette to such a 
degree of dejection and wretchedness ? 

Alas ! we must admit it. The unhappy man 
lacked courage, and he sought consolation in 
his despair, and found it in a vice. 

Every evening when he left his office he 
went into a filthy little cafe on Rue du Four. 
He would go and seat himself upon a bench 
in the back of the room, in the darkest corner, 
as if ashamed ; and would ask in a low tone 
for his first glass of absinthe. His first ! Yes, 
for he drank two, three even. He drank them 


The Days of My Youth. 


67 


in little sips, feeling slowly rise within him the 
cerebral rapture of the powerful liquor. Let 
those who are happy blame him if they will ! 
It was there, leaning upon the marble table, 
looking at, without seeing her, through the 
pyramids of lump sugar and bowls of punch, 
the lady cashier with her well oiled hair re- 
flected in the glass behind her — it was there 
that the inconsolable widower found forget- 
fulness of his trouble. It was there that for 
one hour he lived over again his former hap- 
piness. 

For, by a phenomenon well known to drink- 
ers of absinthe, he regulated and governed his 
intoxication and it gave him the dream that 
he desired. 

“ Boy, one glass of absinthe ! " 

And once more he became the young hus- 
band who adores his dear Lucie and is adored 
by her. 

It is winter, he is seated in the corner by 
the fire, and before him, sitting in the light 
reflected by a green lamp-shade upon which 
dark silhouettes of jockey-riders are running 
at full speed, his wife is busying herself with 
some embroidery. Every few moments they 
look at each other and smile, he over his 
book and she over her work ; the lover never 
tired of admiring Lucie’s delicate fingers. 
She is too pretty ! Suddenly he falls at her 


68 


The Days of My Youth, 


feet, slips his arm about her waist, and gives 
her a long kiss ; then overcome with languor 
he puts his head upon his beloved’s knees and 
hears her say to him in a low voice : “ That is 
right ! Go to sleep ! ” and her soft hands 
lightly stroke his hair. 

“ Boy, one glass of absinthe ! ” 

They are in that beautiful field filled with 
flowers, near the woods in Verrieres, upon a 
fine June afternoon when the sun is low. She 
has made a magnificent bouquet of field flowers. 
She stops every few moments to add a corn- 
flower, and he follows, carrying her mantle 
and umbrella. How beautiful summer is and 
how good it is to love ! They are a little 
tired ; for during the whole of this bright Sun- 
day they have wandered through the meadows. 
It is the hour for dinner, and here is a little 
tavern under some lindens where the white- 
ness of the napkins rival the blossoming 
thickets. They choose a table and order their 
repast of a mustached youth. While waiting 
for their soup, Lucie, rosy from being out all 
day in the open air and silent from hunger, 
amuses herself in looking at the blue designs 
on the bottom of the plates which represented 
battles in Africa. What a joyous dinner ! 
There were mushrooms in the omelet, mush- 
rooms in the stewed kidneys, mushrooms in 
the filet. But so much the better ! They are 


The Days of My Youth. 


69 


very fond of them. And the good wine ! The 
dear child is almost drunk at dessert ! She 
takes it into her head to squeeze a cherry- 
stone between her thumb and first finger and 
makes it spurt — slap ! — into her husband’s face ! 
And the naughty creature laughs! But he 
will have his revenge — wait a little ! He rises 
and leaning over the table buries two fingers 
between her collar and neck, and the mis- 
chievous creature draws her head down into 
her shoulders as far as she can, begging him, 
with a nervous laugh, “No, no, I beseech 
you ! " for she is afraid to be tickled But 
the best time of all is the return through 
the country at night, the exquisite odor of 
new-mown hay, the road lighted by a summer 
sky where the whole zodiac twinkles, and 
through which, like a silent stream, the 
“ Chemin de Saint Jacques " rolls its diamond 
smoke. 

Tired and happy she hangs upon her hus- 
band’s arm. How he loves her ! It seems to 
him that his love for Lucie is as deep and pro- 
found as the night. “ There is nobody coming 
— let me kiss your dear mouth 1” and their 
kisses are so pure, so sincere, and so sweet, 
that they ought to rejoice the stars 1 

“Another glass of absinthe, boy — one 
more ! “ 

And the unhappy man would forget for a 


70 


The Days of My Youth. 


few moments longer that he ought to go back 
to his lonely lodging, where the servant had 
laid the table some time before, and his little 
son awaited him, yawming with hunger and 
reading a book placed beside his plate. He 
forgot the horrible moment of returning, when 
he would try to hide his intoxicated condition 
under a feint of bad humor, and when he 
\vould seat himself at table without even kiss- 
ing Am^dee, in order that the child should 
not smell his breath. 


CHAPTER V. 


Meanwhile the allegorical old fellow with 
the large wings and white beard, Time, had 
emptied his hour-glass many times ; or, to 
speak plainer, the postman, with a few flakes 
of snow upon his blue cloth coat, presents 
himself three or four times a day at his cus- 
tomers’ dwelling to offer in return for a trifling 
sum of money a calendar containing necessary 
information, such as the ecclesiastical compu- 
tation, or 'the difference between the Gre- 
gorian and the Arabic Hegira ; and Amddee 
Violette had gradually become a young man. 

A young man ! that is to say, a being who 
possesses a treasure without knowing its 
value, like a Central African negro who picks 
up one of M. Rothschild’s check-books ; a 
young man ignorant of his beauty or charms, 
who frets because the light beard upon his 
chin has not turned into hideous bristles, a 
young man who awakes every morning full of 
hope, and artlessly asks himself what fortun- 
ate thing will happen to him to-day ; who 
dreams, instead of living, because he is timid 
and poor. 


72 


The Days of My Youth. 

It was then that Amedee made the acquaint- 
ance of one of his comrades — he no longer 
went to M. Batifol’s boarding-school, but was 
completing his studies at the Lycee Henri 
IV. — named Maurice Roger. They soon 
formed an affectionate intimacy, one of those 
eighteen-year-old friendships which are per- 
haps the sweetest and most substantial in the 
world. \ 

Amedee was attracted, at first sight, by 
Maurice’s handsome, blonde, curly head, his 
air of frankness and superiority, and the ele- 
gant jackets that he wore with the easy grace- 
ful manners of a gentleman. Twice a day, 
when they left the college, they walked to- 
gether through the Luxembourg gardens, 
confiding to each other their dreams and 
hopes, lingering in the walks, where Maurice 
already gazed at the grisettes in an impudent 
fashion, talking with the charming abandon 
of their age, the sincere age when one thinks 
aloud. 

Maurice told his new friend that he was the 
son of an officer killed before Sebastopol, that 
his mother had never married again, but 
adored him and indulged him in all his 
whims. He was patiently waiting for his 
school-days to end, to live independently in 
the Latin Quarter, to study law, without be- 
ing hurried, since his mother wished him to 


The Days of My Youth, 


73 


do so, and he did not wish to displease her. 
But also to amuse himself with painting, at 
least as an amateur ; for he was passionately 
fond of it. All this was said by the handsome, 
aristocratic young man with a happy smile, 
which expanded his sensual lips and nostrils, 
and Amedee admired him without one envious 
thought ; feeling, with the generous warmth 
of youth, an entire confidence in the future 
and the mere joy of living. In his turn he 
made a confidant of Maurice, but not of every- 
thing. The poor boy could not tell anybody 
that he suspected his father of a secret vice, 
that he blushed over it, was ashamed of it, 
and suffered from it as much as youth can 
suffer. At least, honest-hearted fellow that 
he was, he avowed his humble origin without 
shame, boasted of his humble friends the 
Gerards, praised Louise’s goodness, and spoke 
enthusiastically of little Maria who was just 
sixteen and so pretty. 

“You will take me to see them some time, 
will you not ? ” said Maurice, who listened to 
his friend with his natural good grace. “ But 
first of all, you must come to dinner some day 
with me, and I will present you to my mother. 
Next Sunday, for instance. Is it agreeable ?” 

Amedee would have liked to refuse, for he 
suddenly recalled — oh ! the torture and suf- 
fering of poor young men ! — that his Sunday 


74 


The Days of My Youth. 


coat was almost as seedy as his every-day one, 
and that his best pair of shoes were run over 
at the heels, and the collars and cuffs on his 
six best shirts were ragged on the edges from 
too frequent washings. Then to go to dinner 
in the city, what an ordeal ! What must he 
do “ to be presented in a drawing-room ? 
The very thought of it made him shiver. But 
Maurice invited him so cordially that he was 
irresistible, and Amedee accepted. 

The following Sunday, then, spruced up in 
his best — what could have possessed the hab- 
erdasher to induce him to buy a pair of red 
dog-skin gloves ? He soon saw that they were 
too new and too startling for the rest of his 
costume — Amedee went up to the first floor 
of a fine house on the Faubourg Saint Honore 
and rang gently at the door on the left. A 
young and pretty maid — one of those bru- 
nettes who have a waist that one can clasp 
with both hands, and a suspicion of a mus- 
tache — opened the door and ushered the 
young man into a parlor furnished in a simple 
but luxurious manner. Maurice was alone, 
standing with his back to the fire, in the atti- 
tude of master of the house. He received his 
friend with warm demonstrations of pleasure. 
Am^dee’s eyes were at once attracted by the 
portrait of a handsome Lieutenant of Artille- 
ry, dressed in the regimental coat with long 




The Days of My Youth. 


75 


skirts, of 1845, and a sword-belt fastened by 
two lions’ heads. This officer, in parade cos- 
tume, was painted, in the midst of a desert, 
seated under a palm-tree. 

“ That is my father,” said Maurice. “ Do I 
not resemble him ?” 

The resemblance was really striking. The 
same warm, pleasant smile, and even the same 
blond curls. Amedee was admiring it when 
a voice repeated behind him, like an echo, 

“ Maurice resembles him, does he not ? ” 

It was Madame Roger who had quietly en- 
tered. When Amedee saw this beautiful lady 
in mourning, with a Roman profile, and dead 
white complexion, who threw such an earnest 
glance at her son, then at her husband’s por- 
trait, Amedee comprehended that Maurice 
was his mother’s idol, and moved by the sight 
of the widow, who would liave been beautiful 
but for her gray hair and eyelids, red from so 
much weeping, he stammered a few words of 
thanks for the invitation to dinner. 

“ My son has told me,” said she, “ that you 
are the one among all his comrades that he 
cares for the most. I know what affection you 
have shown him. I am the one who should 
thank you. Monsieur Amedee.” 

They seated themselves and talked, every 
few moments these words were spoken by 
Madame Roger with an accent of pride and 


76 


The Days of My Youth, 


tenderness, “ My son , . . my son Mau- 

rice.” Amedee realized how pleasant his 
friend’s life must be with such a good mother, 
and he could not help comparing his own sad 
childhood, recalling above all things the lu- 
gubrious evening repasts, when, for several 
years now, he had buried his nose in his plate 
so as not to see his father’s drunken eyes 
always fastened upon him as if to ask for his 
pardon. 

Maurice let his mother praise him for a few 
moments, looking at her with a pleasant smile 
which became a trifle saddened. Finally he 
interrupted her : 

“ It is granted, mamma, that I am a perfect 
phoenix,” and he gaily embraced her. 

At this moment the pretty servant an- 
nounced, “ Monsieur and MesdemoisQlles 
Lantz,” and Madame Roger arose hastily to 
receive the new-comers. Lieutenant-Colonel 
Lantz, of the Engineer Corps, was with Cap- 
tain Roger when he died in the trench before 
Mamelon Vert ; and might have been at that 
time pleasant to look upon, in his uniform 
with its black velvet breast-plate : but having 
been promoted some time ago to the office, 
he had grown aged, leaning over the plans and 
draughts on long tables covered with rules 
and compasses. With a cranium that looked 
like a picked bird, his gray melancholy chin 


The Days of My Youth. 


77 


whisker, his stooping shoulders which short- 
ened still more his tightly buttoned up mili- 
tary coat, there was nothing martial in his ap- 
pearance. With his head full of whims, no 
fortune, and three daughters to marry, the 
poor colonel, who put on only two or three 
times a year, for official solemnities, his uni- 
form which he kept in camphor, dined every 
Sunday night with Madame Roger, who liked 
this estimable man because he was her hus- 
band’s best friend, and had invited him with 
his three little girls, who looked exactly alike, 
with their turned-up noses, florid complexions, 
and little black bead-like eyes, always so care- 
fully dressed that one involuntarily compared 
them to three pretty cakes prepared for some 
wedding or festive occasion. Tliey sat down 
to the table. Madame Roger had an excellent 
cook, and for the first time in his life Amedee 
ate a quantity of good things, even more 
exquisite than Mamma Gerard’s little fried 
dishes. It was really only a very comfortable 
and nice dinner, but to the young man it was 
a revelation of unsuspected pleasures. This 
decorated table, this cloth that was so soft 
when he put his hand upon it ; these dishes 
that excited and satisfied the appetite ; these 
various flavored wines whicli, like the flowers, 
smelled good, what new and agreeable sensa- 
tions ! They were quickly and silently waited 


78 


The Days of My Youth. 


upon by the pretty maid. Maurice seated be- 
fore his mother, presided over the repast with 
his elegant gaiety. Madame Roger’s pale face 
would light up with a smile at each of his 
good-natured jokes, and the three young 
ladies would burst into discreet little laughs, 
all in unison, and even the sorrowful colonel 
would arouse from his torpor. 

He became animated after his second glass 
of burgundy and very entertaining. He spoke 
of the Crimean campaign ; of that chivalrous 
war when the officers of both armies, enemies 
to each other, exchanged politenesses and cig- 
ars during the suspension of arms. He told 
fine military anecdotes, and Madame Roger, 
seeing her son’s face excited with enthusi- 
asm at these heroic deeds, became gloomy at 
once. Maurice noticed it the first. 

“Take care. Colonel,” said he. “You are 
going to frighten mamma, and she will imag- 
ine at once that I still wish to enter Saint- Cyr. 
But I assure you, little mother, you may be 
tranquil. Since you wish it, your respectful 
and obedient son will become a lawyer with- 
out clients, who will paint daubs during his 
spare moments. In reality I should much 
prefer a horse and sword and a squadron of 
hussars. But no matter ! The essential thing 
is not to give mamma any trouble.” 

This was said with so much warmth and 


The Days of My Youth. 


79 


gentleness, that Madame Roger and the col- 
onel exchanged softened looks ; the young 
ladies were also moved, as much as pastry can 
be, and they all fixed upon Maurice their lit- 
tle black eyes, which had suddenly become 
so soft and tender that Amedee did not doubt 
but what they all had a sentimental feeling 
for him, and thought him very fortunate to 
have the choice between three such pretty 
pieces for dessert. 

How all loved this charming and graceful 
Maurice, and how well he knew how to make 
himself beloved ! 

Later, when they served the champagne, he 
arose, glass in hand, and delivered a burlesque 
toast, finding some pleasant word for all his 
guests. What frank gayety ! what a hearty 
laugh went around the table ! The three 
young ladies giggled themselves as red as 
peonies. A sort of joyous chuckle escaped 
from the colonel’s drooping mustache. Ma- 
dame Roger’s smile seemed to make her grow 
young; and Amedee noticed, in a corner of 
the dining-room, the pretty servant, who re- 
strained herself no more than the others ; and 
when she showed her teeth that were like a 
young puppy’s, she was charming indeed. 

After the tea the colonel, who lived at some 
distance, near the Military School, and who, as 
the weather was fine, wished to walk home 


8o 


The Days of My Youth. 


and avoid the expense of a cab, left with his 
three marriageable daughters, and Amedee in 
his turn took his departure. 

In the ante-chamber, the maid said to Mau- 
rice, as she helped him on with his overcoat. 

“ I hope that you will not come in very late 
this evening. Monsieur Maurice.” 

“What is that, Suzanne?” replied the 
young man without anger, but a trifle im- 
patiently. “ I shall return at the hour that 
pleases me.” 

As he descended the stairs ahead of Amedee, 
he said, with a laugh : 

“ Upon my word ! she will soon make her 
jealousy public.” 

“What!” exclaimed AmMee, glad that his 
companion could not see his blushes. 

“ Well, yes ! Is she not pretty ? I admit it, 
Violette ; I have not, like you, the artlessness 
of the flower whose name you bear. You will 
have to resign yourself to it ; you have a 
frightful bad fellow for a friend. As to the 
rest, be content. I have resolved to no longer 
scandalize the family roof. I have finished 
with this bold-faced creature. You must know 
that she commenced it, and was the first to 
kiss me on the sly. Now, I am engaged else- 
where. Here we are outside, and here is a 
carriage. Here, driver ! You will allow me 
to bid you adieu. It is only a quarter past ten. 


The Days of My Youth. 


8i 


I still have time to appear at Bullier’s and 
meet Zoe Mirilton. Until to-morrow, Vio- 
lette.” 

Am^dee returned home very much troubled. 
So then his friend was a libertine. But he 
made excuses for him. Had he not just seen 
him so charming to his mother and so respect- 
ful to the three young ladies ? Maurice al- 
lowed himself to be carried away by his youth- 
ful impetuosity, that was all ! Was it for him, 
still pure but tormented by the temptations 
and curiosity of youth, to be severe ? Would 
he not have done as much had he dared, or if 
he had had the money in his pocket ? To tell 
the truth, Amedee dreamed that very night of 
the pretty maid with the suspicion of a mus- 
tache. 

The next day when Amedee paid his visit to 
the Gerards, all they could talk of was the 
evening before. Amedee spoke with the elo- 
quence of a young man who had seen a finger- 
bowl for the first time at dessert. 

Louise, while putting on her hat and get- 
ting her roll of music — she gave lessons now 
upon the piano in boarding-schools — was 
much interested in Madame Roger’s imposing 
beauty. Mamma Gerard would like to have 
known how the chicken-jelly was made ; the 
old engraver listened with pleasure to the 
colonel’s military anecdotes ; while little Maria 
6 


82 


The Days of My Youth. 


exacted a precise description of the toilettes 
of the three demoiselles Lantz, and turned up 
her nose disdainfully at them. 

“ Now, then, Amedee,” said the young girl, 
suddenly, as she looked at herself in a mirror 
that was all covered with fly-specks, “ tell me 
honestly, were these young ladies any better 
looking than I am ? ” 

“ Do you see the coquette ? ” exclaimed 
Father Gerard, bursting into laughter without 
raising his eyes from his work. “ Do people 
ask such questions as that. Mademoiselle ? ” 

There was a general gayety, but Amedee 
blushed without knowing why. Oh ! no, cer- 
tainly these three young ladies in their Savoy- 
cake skirts and nougat waists were not as 
pretty as little Maria in her simple brown 
dress. How she improved from day to day ! 
It seemed to Amedee as if he never had seen 
her before until this minute. Where had she 
found that supple round waist, that mass of 
reddish hair which she twisted upon the top 
of her head, that lovely complexion, that 
mouth and those eyes that smiled with the 
artless tenderness of young flowers ? 

Mamma Gerard, while laughing like the 
others, scolded her daughter a little for her at- 
tack of feminine vanity, and then began to 
talk of Madame Roger in order to change the 
conversation. 


The Days of My Youth. 


83 


Amedee did not cease to praise his friend. 
He told how affectionate he was to his mother, 
how he resisted the military blood that burned 
in him, how graceful he was, and how, at 
eighteen years, he did the honor of the draw- 
ing-room and table with all the manner of a 
grand seigneur. 

Maria listened attentively. 

‘‘You have promised to bring him here, 
Amedee,*' said the spoiled child, with a serious 
air. “ I should like very much to see him once.” 

Amedee repeated his promise ; but on his 
way to the Lycee, for his afternoon class, he 
recalled the incident of the pretty servant and 
the name of Zoe Mirilton, and seized with 
some scruples, he asked himself if he ought 
to introduce his friend to the young Gerard 
girls. At first this thought made him uneasy, 
then he thought that it was ridiculous. Was 
not Maurice a good-hearted young man and 
well brought up ? Had he not seen him con- 
duct himself with tact and reserve before Col- 
onel Lantz’s daughters ? 

Some days later Maurice reminded him of 
the promised visit to the Gerards, and Am^- 
dee presented him to his old friends. 

Louise was not at home ; she had been go- 
ing about teaching for some time to increase 
the family’s resources, for the engraver was 
more red-faced than ever, and obliged to 


84 


The Days of My Youth. 


change the number of his glasses every year 
and could not do as much work as formerly. 

But the agreeable young man made a con- 
quest of the restt)f the family by his exquisite 
good-nature and cordial, easy manner. Re- 
spectful and simple with Madame Gerard, 
whom he intimidated a little, he paid very lit- 
tle attention to Maria and did not appear to 
notice that he was exciting her curiosity to 
the highest pitch. He modestly asked Father 
Gerard’s advice upon his project of painting, 
amusing himself with the knick-knacks about 
the apartments, picking out by instinct the 
best engravings and canvases of value. The 
good man was enchanted with Maurice and 
hastened to show him his private museum, 
forgetting all about his pipe — he was smoking 
at present a Garibaldi — and presented him his 
last engraving, where one saw — it certainly was 
a fatality that pursued the old republican ! — the 
Emperor Napoleon III., at Magenta, motion- 
less upon his horse in the centre of a square of 
Grenadiers, cut down by grape and canister. 

Maurice’s visit was short, and as Am^dee 
had thought a great deal about little Maria 
for several days, he asked his friend, as he 
conducted him a part of the way : 

What did you think of her ? ” 

Maurice simply replied, “ Delicious ! ” and 
changed the conversation. 


CHAPTER VI. 


A SOLEMN moment approached for the two 
friends. They were to take their examina- 
tions for graduation. Upon the days when 
M. Violette — they called him at the office now, 
“ Father Violette,” he had grown so aged and 
decrepit — was not too much “consoled” in the 
caf6 on Rue du Four, and when he was less 
silent and gloomy than usual, he would say to 
his son, after the soup : 

“ Do you know, Am^dee, I shall not be easy 
in my mind until you have received your de- 
gree. Say what they may, it leads to every- 
thing.” 

To everything indeed ! M. Violette had a 
college friend upon whom all the good marks 
had been showered, who after having been 
successively school-master, journalist, theatri- 
cal critic, a boarder in Mazas prison, insurance 
agent, director of an athletic ring — he quoted 
Homer in his harangue — at present pushed 
back the curtains at the entrance to the Am- 
bigu, and waited for his soup at the barracks 
gate, holding out an old tomato-can to be filled. 


86 


The Days of My Youth. 


But M. Violette had no cause to fear ! Am- 
ddee was presented with his degree the same 
day that his friend Maurice received his, and 
both were honorably received. A little old 
man with a head like a baboon — the scientific 
examiner — tried to make Amedee flounder on 
the subject of nitrogen, but he was received 
all the same. One can hope for everything 
nowadays. 

But what could Amedee hope for first ? 
M. Violette thought of it when he was not at 
his station at Rue du Four. What could he 
hope for ? Nothing very great. 

Probably he could enter the ministry as an 
auxiliary. One hundred francs a month and 
the gratuities would not be bad for a begin- 
ner ! M. Violette recalled his endless years 
in the office, and all the trouble he had taken 
to guess a famous rebus that was celebrated 
for never having been solved. Was Amedee 
to spend his youth deciphering enigmas ? 
M. Violette hoped for a more independent 
career for his son, if it were possible. Com- 
merce for example ! Yes ! there was a future 
in commerce. As a proof of it there was the 
grocer opposite him, a simpleton who prob- 
ably did not put the screws on enough and 
had just hung himself rather than go into 
bankruptcy. M. Violette would gladly see 
his son in business. If he could begin with 


The Days of My Youth. 


87 


M. Gaufre ? Why not ? The young man 
might become in the end his uncle’s partner 
and make his fortune. M. Violette spoke of 
it to Amed^e. 

“ Shall we go and see your uncle Sunday 
morning ? ” 

The idea of selling chasubles and Stations 
the Cross did not greatly please Amedee, who 
had concealed in his drawer a little book full 
of sonnets, and had in his mind a plan of a 
romantic drama where one would say “good 
heavens ! ” and “ my lords ! ” But first of all 
he must please his father. He was glad to 
observe that for some time M. Violette had in- 
terested himself more in him, and resisted his 
baneful habit somewhat. The young man of- 
fered no resistance. The next day at noon he 
presented himself at Rue Servandoni, accom- 
panied by his father. 

The “ dealer in pious goods ” received them 
with great good humor. He had just come 
from high mass and was about to sit down at 
the table. He even invited them to follow 
his example and taste of his stewed kidneys, 
one of Berenice’s triumphs, who served the 
dinner with her hands loaded with rings. The 
Violettes had dined, and the father made 
known his desire. 

“ Yes ! ” said Uncle Isidore,” “Amedee might 
enter the house. Only you know, Violette, it 


88 


The Days of My Youth. 


will be another education to be learned over 
again. He must commence at the very begin- 
ning and follow the regular course. Oh ! the 
boy will not be badly treated ! He may take 
his meals with us, is not that so, Berenice ? 
At first he would be obliged to run about a 
little, as I did when I came from the province 
to work in the store and tie up parcels.” 

M. Violette looked at his son and saw that 
he was blushing with shame. The poor man 
understood his mistake. What good to have 
dazzled M. Patin before the whole University 
by reciting, without hesitation, three verses of 
Aristophanes, only to become a drudge and a 
packer ? Well ! so Am^dee would yawn over 
green boxes and guess enigmas in the Illustra- 
tion, It had to be so. 

They took leave of Uncle Isidore. 

“We will reflect over it, M. Gaufre, and will 
come to see you again.” 

But Berenice had hardly shut the door upon 
them when M. Violette said to his son ; 

“There is nothing to be expected of that old 
egotist. To-morrow we will go to see the 
chief of my department, I have spoken of you 
to him, at all events.” 

He was a good sort of a fellow, this M. 
Courtet, who was head clerk. Too conceited 
and starched up certainly. His red rosette, as 
large as a fifty-cent piece, made one's eyes 


The Days of My Youth. 


89 


blink, and he certainly was very imprudent 
to stand so long backed up to the fireplace 
with limbs spread apart, for it seemed that he 
must surely burn the seat of his trousers. But 
no matter, he has stomach enough. He has 
noticed M. Violette’s pitiful decline — “a poor 
devil who will never live to be promoted.” 
Having it in his power to distribute positions, 
M. Courtethad reserved a position for Amedee. 
In eight days the young man would be nomi- 
nated an auxiliary employee at fifteen hundred 
francs a year. It is promised and done. 

Ugh ! the sickening heat from the stove ! 
the disgusting odor of musty papers ! HoW“ 
ever Amedee had nothing to complain of ; they 
might have given him figures to balance for 
five hours at a time. He owed it to M. Cour- 
tet’s kindness, that he was put at once into the 
correspondence room. He studied the formu- 
las, and soon became skilful in official polite- 
ness. He now knew the delicate shades which 
exist between “yours respectfully ” and “ most 
respectfully yours;” and he measured the 
abyss which separates an “ agreeable ” and 
“ homage.” 

To sum it all up, Amedee is bored, but he is 
not unhappy ; for he has time to dream. 

He goes the longest way to the office in the 
morning, while seeking to make “ amour ” 
rhyme with “jour” without producing an in- 


90 


The Days of My Youth. 


sipid thing ; or else he thinks of the third act 
of his drama after the style of 1830, and the 
grand love scene which takes place at the foot 
of the Montfaucon gallows. In the evening he 
goes to the Gerards, and they all seat them- 
selves around the lamp which is on the dining- 
room table, the father reading his journal, 
the women sewing. He chatters with Maria, 
who answers him the greater part of the time 
without raising her eyes, because she suspects, 
the coquette! that he admires her beautiful 
drooping lids. 

Amedee composed his first sonnets in her 
honor, and he adored her, of course, but he is 
also in love with the Lantz young ladies whom 
he sees sometimes at Madame Roger’s, and 
who each of them had the other Sunday even- 
ing a rose in her hair, which made them resem- 
ble those pantheons in sponge cake that pastry 
cooks put in their windows on fete days. 

If Amedee had been presented to twelve 
thousand maidens successively, they would 
have inspired twelve thousand wishes. There 
was the servant of the family on tlie first floor, 
whose side glance troubled him as he met her 
on the staircase ; and his heart sank every 
time he turned the handle of the door of a 
shop on Rue Bonaparte, where an insidious 
clerk always forced him to choose ox-colored 
kid-gloves, which he detested. It must not be 


The Days of My Youth. 91 

forgotten that Amedee was very young, and 
was in love with love. 

He was so extremely timid that he had 
never had the audacity to tell the girl at the 
glove counter that he preferred bronze green 
gloves, nor the boldness to show Maria Gerard 
his poems composed in her honor, in wdiich he 
now always put the plural “ amours,” so as to 
make it rhyme with “ toujours,” which was an 
improvement. He had never dared to reply 
to the glance of the little maid on the second 
floor ; and he was very wrong to be embar- 
rassed, for one morning, as he passed the 
butcher’s shop, he saw the butcher’s foreman 
put his arm about the girl’s waist and whisper 
some loye speech over a fine sirloin roast. 

Sometimes in going or coming from the of- 
fice Amedee would go and see his friend 
Maurice, who had obtained from Madame 
Roger permission to instal himself in the Latin 
Quarter “ so as to be near the law school.” 

In a very low studded first floor room on 
Rue Monsieur le Prince, Amedee perceived 
through a cloud of tobacco-smoke the elegant 
Maurice in a scarlet jacket lying upon a large 
divan. Everything was rich and voluptuous, 
heavy carpets, handsomely bound volumes of 
poems, an open piano, and an odor of perfum- 
ery mixed with that of cigarettes, upon the 
velvet-covered mantel Mademoiselle Irma, the 


92 


The Days of My Youth. 


favorite of the master of the apartment, had 
left the last fashionable novel, marking with 
one of her hair-pins, where she left off reading. 
Amedee spent a delightful hour there. Mau- 
rice always greeted him with his joyful, kind 
manner, in which one scarcely minded the 
slight shade of patronage. He walked up and 
down his room, expanding his finely moulded 
chest, lighting and throwing away his cigar- 
ettes, seating himself for two minutes at the 
piano and playing one of Chopin’s sad strains, 
opening a book and reading a page, showing 
his albums to his friend, making him repeat 
some of his poems, applauding him andtouch- 
ing lightly upon different subjects, and charm- 
ing Amedee more and more by his grace and 
manners. 

However, Amedee could not enjoy his friend 
much as he rarely found him alone. Every few 
moments — the key was in the door — Maurice’s 
comrades, young pleasure-seekers like himself, 
but more vulgar, not having his gentlemanly 
bearing and manners, would come to talk with 
him of some projected scheme or to remind 
him of some appointment for the evening. 

Often, some one of them, with his hat upon 
his head, would dash off a polka, after having 
placed his lighted cigar upon the edge of the 
piano. These fast fellows frightened Amedee a 
little, as he had the misfortune to be fastidious. 


The Days of My Youth. 


93 


After these visitors had left, Maurice would 
ask his friend to dinner, but the door would 
open again aad Mademoiselle Irma, in her furs 
and small veil — a comical little face — would 
enter quickly and throw her arms about 
Am^dee’s neck, kissing him, while rumpling 
his hair with her gloved hands. 

“ Bravo ! we will all three dine together.” 

No. Amedee is ‘afraid of Mademoiselle 
Irma, who has already thrown her mantle 
upon the sofa and crowned the bronze Venus 
de Milo with her otter toque. The young 
man excuses himself, he is expected at home. 

Timid fellow, go ! ” said Maurice to him, 
as he conducted him to the door, laughing. 

What longings ! What dreams ! It made 
up all of poor AmMee’s life. Sometimes they 
were sad, for he suffered in seeing his father 
indulge himself more and more in his vice. 
No woman loved him and he never had one 
louis in his vest pocket for pleasure or liberty. 
But he did not complain. His life was noble 
and happy ! He smiled with pleasure as he 
thought of his good friends ; his heart beat in 
great throbs as he thought of love ; he cried 
with rapture over beautiful verses. The spec- 
tacle of life, through hope and the ideal, 
seemed to him transfigured. Happy Amedee ! 
He was not twenty years old yet ! 


CHAPTER VII. 


One sombre, misty winter’s morning Ame- 
dee lingered in his bed, his father entered, 
bringing him a letter that the concierge’s wife 
had just brought up. The letter was from 
Maurice, inviting his friend to dinner that 
evening at seven o’clock at Foyots, to meet 
some of his former companions at the Lycde 
Henri IV. 

“ Will you excuse me for not dining with 
you this evening, papa ? ” said Amedee, joy- 
fully. “ Maurice Roger entertains us at a 
restaurant.” 

The young man’s gayety left him suddenly 
when he looked at his father, who had seated 
himself on the side of the bed. He had be- 
come almost frightful to look at ; old before 
his time, livid of complexion, his eyes injected 
with blood, the rebellious lock of hair, now of 
a dirty white, straggled over his right temple. 
Nothing was more heart-breaking than his 
senile smile when he placed his bony trem- 
bling hands upon his thighs. Amedee, who 
knew, alas, why his father had reached such 


The Days cf My Youth. 95 

a pass, felt his heart moved with pity and 
shame. 

“Are you suffering to-day?” asked the 
young man. “Would you prefer that we 
should dine together as usual ? I will send 
word to Maurice. Nothing is easier.” 

“No, my child, no!” replied M. Violette, 
in a hollow tone. “ Go and amuse yourself 
with your friends. I know perfectly well that 
the life that you lead with me is too monoto- 
nous. Go and amuse yourself, it will please 
me — only there is an idea that troubles me 
more than usual — and I want to confide it to 
you.” 

“ What is it then, dear papa ? ” 

“ Amedee, last March your mother has been 
dead fifteen years. You hardly knew her. 
She was the sweetest and best of creatures, 
and all that I can wish you is, that you may 
meet such a woman, make her your companion 
for life, and be more fortunate than I was, my 
poor Amedee, and keep her always. During 
these frightful years since your mother’s death 
I have suffered, do you see ? suffered horribly, 
and I have never, never been consoled. If I 
have lived — If I have had the strength to live, 
in spite of all, it was only for you and in re- 
membrance of her. I think I have nearly 
finished my task. You are a young man, in- 
telligent and honest, and you have now an 


96 


The Days of My Youth. 


employment which will give you your bread. 
However, I often ask myself — oh, very often — 
if I have fulfilled my duty toward you. Ah ! 
do not protest,” added the unhappy man, whom 
Amedee had clasped in his arms. “No, my 
poor child, I have not loved you sufficiently ; 
grief has filled too large a place in m}’- heart ; 
above all, during these last few years I have 
not been with you enough. I have sought 
solitude. You understand me, Amedee, I can- 
not tell you more,” he said, with a sob. “ There 
are some parts of my life that you must ignore, 
and if it grieves you to know whatT have be- 
come during that time, you must never think 
of it ; forget it. I beg of you, my child, do not 
judge me severely. And one of these days, if 
I die — ah ! we must expect it — the burden of 
my grief is too heavy for me to bear, it crushes 
me ! Well, my child, if I die, promise me to 
be indulgent to my memory, and when you 
think of your father only say : Hie was very 
unhappy ! ’ ” 

Amedee shed tears upon his father’s shoul- 
der, who softly stroked his son’s beautiful hair 
with his trembling hands. 

“ My father, my good father,” sobbed Ame- 
d6e, “ I love and respect you with all my heart. 
I will dress myself quickly and we will go to 
the office together ; we will return the same 
way and dine like a couple of good friends. 


The Days of My Youth. 97 

I beg of you do not ask me to leave you to- 
day ! ” 

But M. Violette suddenly arose as if he had 
formed some resolution. 

“No, Amedee," said he, firmly. “I have 
said what I had to say to you, and you will 
remember it. That is sufficient. Go and 
amuse yourself this evening with your friends. 
Sadness is dangerous at your age. As for my- 
self I will go and dine with Pere Bastide, who 
has just received his pension, and has invited 
me more than twenty times to come and see 
his little house at Grand Montrouge. It is 
understood ; I wish it. Now then, wipe your 
eyes and kiss me.” 

After having tenderly embraced his son M. 
Violette left the room. Amedee could hear 
him in the vestibule take down his hat and 
cane, open and close the door, and go down 
the stairs with a heavy step. A quarter of an 
hour after, as the young man was crossing the 
Luxembourg to go to the office, he met Louise 
Gerard with her roll of music in her hand go- 
ing to give some lessons in the city. He 
walked a few steps beside her, and the worthy 
girl noticed his red eyes and disturbed coun- 
tenance. 

“ What is tlie matter with you, Amedee ? ” 
she inquired, anxiously. 

“Louise,” he replied, “do you not think 
7 


98 


The Days of My Youth. 


that my father has changed very much in the 
last few months ? ” 

She stopped and looked at him with eyes 
shining with compassion. 

“Very much changed, my poor Amedee. 
You would not believe me if I told you that I 
had not remarked it. But whatever may be 
the cause — how shall I say it ? — that has af- 
fected your father’s health, you should think 
of only one thing, my friend ; that is, that he 
has been tender and devoted to you ; that he 
became a widower very young and he did not 
re-marry ; that he has endured, in order to de- 
vote himself to his only child, long years of 
solitude and unhappy memories. You must 
think of that, Amedee, and that only.” 

“I shall never forget it, Louise, never fear; 
my heart is full of gratitude. This morning, 
even, he was so affectionate and kind to me 
— but his health is ruined ; he is now a weak 
old man. Soon — I not only fear it, but I am 
certain of it — soon he will be incapable of 
work. I can see his poor hands tremble now. 
He will not even have a right to a pension. 
If he could not continue to work in the office 
he could scarcely obtain a meagre relief, and 
that by favor only. And for long years I can 
only hope for an insufficient salary. Oh! to 
think that the catastrophe draws near, that 
one of these days he may fall ill and become 


The Days of My Youth, 


99 


infirm, perhaps, and that we shall be almost 
needy and I shall be unable to surround him 
with care in his old age. That is what makes 
me tremble ! ” 

They walked along side by side upon the 
moist, soft ground of the large garden, under 
the leafless trees, where hung a slight but pen- 
etrating mist which made them shiver under 
their wraps. 

“Amedee,” said she, looking at the young 
man with a serious gentleness, “ I have known 
you from a child and I am the elder. I am 
twenty-two ; that makes me almost an old 
maid, Amedee, and gives me the right to scold 
you a little. You lack confidence in life, my 
friend, and it is wrong at your age. Do you 
think that I do not see that my father has 
aged very much, that his eyesight fails, that 
we are much more cramped in circumstances 
in the house than formerly ? Are we any the 
more sad ? Mamma makes fewer little dishes 
and I teach in Paris, that is all. We live 
nearly the same as before and our dear Ma- 
ria — she is the pet of us all, the joy and pride 
of the house — well, our Maria, all the same, 
has from time to time a new dress or a pretty 
hat. I have no experience, but it seems to me 
that in order to feel really unhappy I must 
have nobody to love, that is the only privation 
worth the trouble of noticing. Do you know 


lOO 


The Days of My Youth. 


that I have just had one of the greatest pleas- 
ures of my life. I noticed that papa did not 
smoke as much as usual, in order to be eco- 
nomical, poor man ! Fortunately I found a new 
pupil at Batignolles, and as soon as I had the 
first month’s pay in my pocket I bought a 
large package of tobacco and put it beside his 
work. One must never complain as long as 
one is fortunate enough to keep those one 
loves. I know the secret grief that troubles 
you as regards your father ; but think what 
he has suffered, that he loves you, that you 
are his only consolation. And when you have 
gloomy thoughts, come and see your old 
friends, Amedee. They will try to warm your 
heart at the fireside of their friendship and 
give you some of their courage, the courage 
of poor people, which is composed of a little 
indifference and a little resignation.” 

They had reached the Florentine Terrace, 
where the marble statues of queens and la- 
dies are, and on the other side of the balus- 
trade, ornamented with large vases, they could 
see through the mist the reservoir with its two 
swans, the solitary gravel walks, the empty 
grass-plots of a palish green, surrounded by 
the skeletons of lilac-trees, and the fapade of 
the old palace whose clock-hands pointed to 
ten. 

“ Let us hurry,” said Louise, after a glance 


The Days of My Youth. 


lor 


at the dial. “ Escort me as far as the Odeon 
omnibus. I am a little late.” 

As he walked by her side he looked at her. 
Alas, no ! Poor Louise was not pretty, in spite 
of her large eyes, so loving but not coquet- 
tish. She wore a close, ugly hat, a mantle 
drawn tightly about her shoulders, colored 
gloves, and heavy walking shoes. Yes, she was 
a perfect picture of a “ two francs an hour ” 
music-teacher. What a good, brave girl ! 
With what an overflowing heart she had 
spoken of her family ! It was to earn tobacco 
for her father and a new dress for her pretty 
sister that she left thus, so early in the morn- 
ing in the mist, and rode in public carriages 
or tramped through the streets of Paris in the 
mud. The sight of her, more than what she 
said, gave the weak and melancholy Amed^e 
courage and desire for manly resolutions. 

“ My dear Louise,” said he with emotion, 

I am very fortunate to have such a friend as 
you, and for so many years ! Do you remem- 
ber when we used to have our hunts after the 
bear-skin cap when we were children ?” 

They had just left the garden and found 
themselves behind the Od^on. Two tired-out 
omnibus horses of a yellowish white color, 
and showing their ribs, were rubbing their 
noses against each other like a caress ; then 
the horse on the left raised his head and 


102 


The Days of My Youth. 


placed it in a friendly way upon the other’s 
mane. Louise pointed to the two animals 
and said to Amedee, smilingly. 

“Their fate is hard, is it not? No matter ! 
they are good friends, and that is enough to 
help them endure it.’’ 

Then, shaking hands with Amedee, she 
climbed lightly up into the carriage. 

All that day at the office Amedee was un- 
easy about his father, and about four o’cl9ck, 
a little before the time for his departure, he 
went to M. Violette’s office. There they told 
him that his father had just left, saying that 
he would dine at Grand Montrouge with an 
old friend ; and Amedee, a trifle reassured, 
decided to rejoin his friend Maurice at the 
Foyot restaurant. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


Am^d^e was the first to arrive at the ren- 
dezvous. He had hardly pronounced Maurice 
Roger’s name when a voice like a cannon 
bellowed out, “Now then! the yellow par- 
lor ! ” and he was conducted into a room 
where a dazzling table was laid by a young 
man, with a Yankee goatee and whiskers, and 
the agility of a prestidigitateur. This frisky 
person relieved Amed^e at once of his hat and 
coat, and left him alone in the room, radiant 
with lighted candles. 

Evidently it was to be a banquet. There 
was piled up in the centre of the table a large 
dish of cray-fish, and at each plate — there 
were five — there were groups of large and 
small glasses. 

Maurice came in almost immediately, ac- 
companied by his other guests, three young 
men dressed in great style, whom Am^dee did 
not at first recognize as his former comrades, 
who once wore wrinkled socks and worn-out 
coats, and wore out with him the seats of their 
trousers on the benches of the Lycee Henri 
IV. 


1 04 The Days of My Youth. 

After the greetings, “ What ! is it you ? ” 
“ Do you remember me ? ” and a shaking of 
hands, they all seated themselves around the 
table. 

What ! is that little dumpy fellow with the 
turned-up nose, straight as an arrow and with 
such a satisfied air, Gorju, who wanted to be 
an actor ? He is one now, or nearly so, since 
he studies with Regnier at the Conservatoire. 
A make-believe actor, he puts on airs, and in 
the three minutes that he has been in the 
room he has looked at his retrousse nose and 
his coarse face, made to be seen from a dis- 
tance, ten times in the mirror. His first care 
is to inform Amedee that he has renounced 
his name Gorju, which was an impossible one 
for the theatre, and has taken that of Jocque- 
let. Then, without losing a moment, he refers 
to his talents,” “ charms,” and “ physique.” 

Who is this handsome fellow with such neat 
side-whiskers, Avhose finely cut features look 
as if carved out of soap, and who has just 
placed a heavy lawyer’s portfolio upon the 
sofa ? It is Arthur Papillon, the distinguished 
Latin scholar who wished to organize a “ de- 
bating society ” at the Lycee, and to divide the 
rhetoric class into groups and sub-groups like 
a parliament. “ What have you been doing, 
Papillon ?” Papillon had studied law and was 
secretary of the Patru Conference, of course. 


The Days of My Youth, 105 

Amedee immediately recognized the third 
guest. 

“ What ! Gustave ! ” exclaimed he, joyously. 

Yes ! Gustave, the former “dunce,” the one 
whom they had called “ Good-luck ” because 
his father had made an immense fortune in 
guano. Not one bit changed was Gustave ! 
The same deep-set eyes and greenish com- 
plexion. But what style ! English from the 
tips of his pointed shoes to the horseshoe scarf- 
pin in his necktie. One would say that he 
was a horse jockey dressed in his Sunday 
best. What was this comical Gustave doing 
now ? Nothing. His father has made two 
hundred thousand pounds income dabbling in 
certain things, and Gustave is getting acquaint- 
ed with life, that is all — which means to wake 
up every morning toward noon, with a bitter 
mouth caused from the last night’s supper, and 
to be surprised every morning at dawn at the 
baccarat table, after having spent five hours 
saying “ bac ! ” in a stifled, hollow voice. 
Gustave understands life, and taking into con- 
sideration his countenance like a death’s head, 
it may lead him to make the acquaintance of 
something entirely different. But who thinks 
of death at his age ? Gustave wishes to know 
life, and when a fit of coughing interrupts him 
in one of his idiotic bursts of laughter, his 
comrades at the Gateux Club tell him that 


io6 The Days of My Youth. 

he has swallowed the wrong way. Wretched 
Gustave, so be it ! 

Meanwhile the boy with the juggler’s mo- 
tions appeared with the soup, and made ex- 
actly the same gestures when he uncovered 
the tureen as Robert Houdin would have 
made, and one was surprised not to see a 
bunch of flowers or a live rabbit fly out. But 
no ! it was simply soup, and the guests at- 
tacked it vigorously and in silence. After the 
Rhine wine all the tongues were unloosened, 
and as soon as they had eaten the Normandy 
sole — oh ! what glorious appetites at twenty 
years of age ! — the five young men all talked at 
once. What a racket ! Exclamations crossed 
each other like rockets. Gustave, forcing 
his weak voice, boasted of the performances 
of a “stepper” that he had tried that morn- 
ing in the Allee des Cavaliers. He would have 
been much better off to have stayed in his 
bed and taken cod-liver oil. Maurice called 
out to the boy to uncork the Chateau-L^o- 
ville. Amedee having spoken of his drama to 
the comedian, Gorju, called Jocquelet, speak- 
ing in his bugle-like voice that' came through 
his bugle-shaped nose, set himself up at once 
as a man of experience, giving his advice, and 
quoting, with admiration. Talma’s famous 
speech to a dramatic poet : “ Above all, no 
fine verses!” Arthur Papillon, who was des- 


The Days of My Youth, 


107 


tined for the courts, thought it an excellent 
time to lord it over the tumult of the assem- 
bly himself, and bleated out a speech of Jules 
Favre that he had heard the night before in 
the legislative assembly. 

The timid Amedee was defeated at the start 
in this melee of conversation. Maurice also 
kept silent, with a slightly disdainful smile 
under his pretty golden mustache, and an 
attack of coughing soon disabled Gustave. 
Alone, like two ships in line who let out, turn 
by turn, their volleys, the lawyer and the actor 
continued their cannonading. Arthur Papil- 
lon, who belonged to the liberal opposition 
and wished that the Imperial government 
should come around to “ a pacific and regular 
movement of parliamentary institutions,” was 
listened to for a time, and explained, in a clear, 
full voice the last article in the Courrier du Di- 
manche. But, bursting out in his terrible 
voice, which seemed like all of Gideon’s trum- 
pets blowing at once, the comedian took up 
the offensive and victoriously declared a hun- 
dred foolish things — saying, for example, that 
the part of Alceste ought to be made a comic 
one ; making fun of Shakespeare and Hugo, 
exalting Scribe, and in spite of his profile and 
hooked nose, which ought to have opened the 
doors of the Theatre-Frangais and given him 
an equal share for life in its benefits, he af- 


io8 The Days of My Youth. 

firmed that he intended to play lovers’ parts, 
and that he meant to assume the responsibil- 
ity of making the role of Nero^ in “ Britanni- 
cus,” “ sympathetic.” 

This would have become terribly tiresome, 
but for the entrance upon the scene of some 
truffled partridges, which the juggler carved 
and distributed in less time than it would take 
to shuffle a pack of cards “ not marked.” He 
even served the very worst part of the bird to 
the simple Amedee, as he would force him to 
choose the nine of spades. Then he poured 
out the chambertin, and once more all the 
heads became excited, and the conversation 
fell, as was inevitable, upon the subject of 
women. 

Jocquelet was the one who commenced it, 
by speaking the name of one of the prettiest 
actresses in Paris. He knew them dll and 
described them exactly, detailing their beau- 
ties like a slave-dealer. 

“ So little Lucille Prunelle is a friend of the 
great Moncontour ” 

“Pardon me,” interrupted Gustave, who 
was looking badly, “ she has already left him 
for Cerfbeer the banker.” 

“ I say she has not.” 

“ I say that she has.” 

They would have quarrelled if Maurice, 
with his affable, bantering air, had not at- 


The Days of My Youth. 


109 

tacked Arthur Papillon on the subject of his 
love affairs ; for the young advocate drank 
many cups of Orleanist tea, going even in- 
to the same drawing-rooms as Beule and 
Prevost - Paradol, and accompanying politi- 
cal ladies to the receptions at the Academic 
Fran9aise. 

“ That is where you must make havoc, you 
wretch ! ” 

But Papillon defends himself with conceited 
smiles and meaning looks. According to him 
— and he puts his two thumbs into the arm- 
holes of his vest — the ambitious must be 
chaste. 

“Abstineo venere,” said he, lowering his 
eyes in a comical manner, for he did not fear 
Latin quotations. However, he declared him- 
self very hard to please in that matter ; he 
dreamed of an Egeria, a superior mind. What 
he did not tell them was, that a dressmaker’s 
little errand girl, with whom he tried to con- 
verse as he left the law-school, had surveyed 
him from head to foot and threatened him 
with the police. 

Upon some new joke of Maurice’s, the law- 
yer gave his amorous programme in the fol- 
lowing terms : 

“ Understand me, a woman must be as intel- 
ligent as Hypatia, and have the sensibility of 
Heloise ; the smile of a Joconde, and the limbs 


I lO 


The Days of My Youth. 


of an Antiope ; and then, if she did not have 
the throat of a Venus de Medicis, I should not 
love her.” 

Without going quite so far, the actor showed 
himself none the less exacting. According to 
his ideas, Deborah, the tragedienne at the 
Odeon — a Greek statue ! — had too large hands, 
and the fascinating Blanche Pompon at the 
Varietes was a mere wax doll. 

Gustave, after all, was the one who is most 
intractable ; excited by the Bordeaux wine — a 
glass of mineral water would be the best for him 
— he proclaimed that the most beautiful crea- 
ture was only agreeable to him for one day ; that 
it was a matter of principle, and that he had 
never made but one exception, in favor of the 
illustrious dancer at Casino Cadet, Nina I’Au- 
vergnate, because she was so comical ! Oh ! 
my friends, she is so droll, it is enough to kill 
one ! ” 

To kill one ! Yes ! my dear Monsieur Gus- 
tave, that is what will happen to you one of 
these fine mornings, if you do not decide to 
lead a more reasonable life — and on the con- 
dition that you pass your winters in the South, 
also ! ” 

Poor Amedee was in torture ; all his illu- 
sions — desires and sentiments blended — are 
cruelly wounded. Then, he had just discov- 
ered a deplorable faculty ; a new cause for 


The Days of My Youth, 


III 


being unhappy. The sight of this foolishness 
made him suffer. How these coarse young 
men lied ! Gustave seemed to him a genuine 
idiot. Arthur Papillon a pedant, and as to 
Jocquelet, he was as unbearable as a large 
meat-fly buzzing between the glass and cur- 
tain of a nervous man’s room. Fortunately, 
Maurice made a little diversion by bursting 
into a laugh. 

“ Well, my friends, you are all of you simple- 
tons,” exclaimed he. “ I am not like you, 
thank fortune ! I do not sputter over my soup. 
Long life to women ! Yes, all of them, pretty 
and otherwise ! For, upon my word there are 
no ugly ones. I do not notice that Miss Keep- 
sake has feet like the English, and I forget the 
barmaid’s ruddy complexion, if she is attrac- 
tive otherwise. Now do not talk in this stupid 
fashion, but do as I do ; nibble all the apples 
while you have teeth. Do you know why, at 
the moment that I am teasing the lady of the 
house, I notice the nose of the pretty waitress 
who brings a letter in on a salver ? Do you 
know why, just as I am leaving Cydalize’s 
house, who has just put a rose in my button- 
hole, that I turn my head at the passing of 
Margoton, who is returning from the market 
with a basket upon her arm ? It is because it 
is one other of my children. One other ! that 
is a great word ! Yes, one thousand and three. 


I 12 


The Days of My Youth. 


Don Juan was right. I feel his blood coursing 
in my veins. And now the boy shall uncork 
some champagne, shall he not ? to drink to 
the health of love ! 

Maurice was cynical, but this exposition 
of his philosophy served a good purpose all the 
same. Everybody applauded him. The pres- 
tidigitateur who moved about the table like 
a school-boy in a palace of monkeys, drew the 
cork from a bottle of Roederer — it was aston- 
ishing that fireworks did not dart out of it — 
and good-humor was restored. It reigned 
noisily until the end of the repast, whose 
effect was spoiled by that fool of a Gustave. 
He insisted upon drinking three glasses of 
kiimmel — why had they not poured in maple 
syrup ? — and imagining that Jocquelet looked 
at him askance, he suddenly manifested the 
intention of cutting his head open with the 
caraffe. The comedian, who was very pale, 
recalled all the scenes of provocation that he 
had seen in the theatre ; he stiffened in his 
chair, swelled out his chest, and stammered 
‘‘At your orders ! ” trying to “play the situa- 
tion.” But it was useless. Gustave, restrained 
by Maurice and Amed^e, and as drunk as 
a Pole, responded to his friends’ objurga- 
tions by a torrent of tears and fell under 
the table, breaking some of the dishes. 

“Now, then, we must take the baby home,” 


The Days of My Youth, 1 13 

said Maurice, signing to the boy. In the 
twinkling of an eye the human rag called 
Gustave is lifted into a chair, clothed in his 
overcoat and hat, dressed and spruced up, 
pushed down the spiral staircase, and landed 
in a cab. Then the prestidigitateur returned 
and performed his last trick by making the 
plate disappear upon which Maurice had 
thrown some money to pay the bill. 

It was not far from eleven o’clock when the 
comrades shook hands, in a thick fog, in which 
the gas-lights looked like the orange pedlers’ 
paper lanterns. Ugh ! how damp it was ! 

“ Good-by.” 

I will see you again soon.” 

Good-night to the ladies.” 

Arthur Papillon was in his dress-suit and 
white necktie, his customary attire every 
evening, and still had time to show himself in 
a political salon on the left side, where he met 
Moichod, the author of that famous Histoire 
de Napoleon,” in which he proves that Napo- 
leon was only a mediocre general, and that all 
his battles were gained by his lieutenants. 
Jocquelet wished to go to the Odeon and hear, 
for the tenth time, the fifth act of a piece of 
the common-sense school, in which the hero, 
after haranguing against money for four acts 
in badly rhymed verses, ends by marrying 
the young heiress, to the great satisfaction 
8 


The Days of My Youth. 


114 

of the bourgeois. As to Maurice, before he 
went to rejoin Mademoiselle Irma at Rue 
Monsieur-le-Prince, he .walked part of the way 
-with Amedee. 

“These comrades of ours are a little stupid, 
aren’t they ? ” said he to his friend. 

“ I must say that they almost disgust me,” 
replied the young man. “ Their brutal way of 
speaking of women and love wounded me, and 
you too, Maurice. So much the worse ! I 
will be honest ; you, who are so refined and 
proud, tell me that you did not mean what you 
said — that you made a pretence of vice just to 
please the others. It is not possible that you 
are content to simply gratify your appetite 
and make yourself a slave to your passions. 
You ought to have a higher ideal. Your con- 
science must reproach you.” 

Maurice brusquely interrupted this tirade, 
laughing in advance at what he was going to 
say. 

“My conscience? Oh, tender and artless 
Violette ; Oh, modest wood-flower ! Con- 
science, my poor friend, is like a SuMe glove, 
you can wear it soiled. Adieu ! We will talk 
of this another day, when Mademoiselle Irma 
is not waiting for me.” 

Amedee walked on alone, shivering in the 
mist, weary and sad, to the Rue Notre-Dame- 
des-Champs. 


The Days of My Youth. 115 

No ! it could not be true. There must be 
another love than that known to these brutes. 
There were other women besides the light 
creatures they had spoken of. His thoughts 
reverted to the companion of his childhood, to 
the pretty little Maria, and again he sees her 
sewing near the family lamp, and talking with 
him without raising her eyes, while he ad- 
mires her beautiful drooping lashes. He is 
amazed to think that this delicious child’s 
presence has never given him the slightest un- 
easiness ; that he has never thought of any 
other happiness than that of being near her. 
Why should not a love like that he has 
dreamed of some day spring up in her own 
heart ? Have they not grown up together ? 
Is he not the only young man that she knows 
intimately ? What happiness to become her 
fiance ! Yes ! it was thus that one should love. 
Hereafter he would flee from all temptations ; 
he would pass all of his evenings with the 
Gerards ; he would keep as near as possible to 
his dear Maria, content to hear her speak, to see 
her smile ; and he would wait with a heart full 
of tenderness for the moment when she would 
consent to become his wife. Oh ! the exqui- 
site union of two chaste beings ! the adorable 
kiss of two innocent mouths ! Did such happi- 
ness really exist ? 

This beautiful dream warmed the young 


ii6 The Days of My Youth. 

man’s heart, and he reached his home joyous 
and happy. He gave a vigorous pull to the 
bell, climbed quickly up the long flights of 
stairs and opened the door to their apartment. 
But what was this ? His father must have 
come home very late, for a stream of light 
shines under the door of his sleeping-room. 

“ Poor man ! ” thought Am^dee, recalling 
the scene of the morning. “ He may be ill. 
Let us see.” 

He had hardly opened the door, when he 
drew back uttering a shriek of horror and dis- 
tress. By the light of a candle- that burned 
upon the mantel, Amedee had caught sight of 
his father extended upon the floor, his shirt 
disordered and covered with blood, holding in 
his clenched right hand the razor with which 
he had cut his throat. 

Yes ! the union of two loving hearts had at 
last taken place. Their love was happiness on 
earth ; but if one of the two dies the other can 
never be consoled while life lasts. 

M. Violette was never consoled. 


CHAPTER IX. 


Now Am^dee had no family. The next day 
after his father’s death he had a violent rup- 
ture with M. Isidore Gaufre. Under the pre- 
text that a suicide horrified him, he allowed 
his niece’s husband to be carried to the ceme- 
tery in a sixth-class hearse, and did not honor 
with his presence the funeral, which was even 
prohibited from using the parish road. But 
the saintly man was not deterred from swal- 
lowing for his dinner that same day, while 
thundering against the progress of material- 
ism, tripe cooked after the Caen fashion, one 
of Berenice’s weekly works of art. 

Amedee had now no family, and his friends 
were dispersed. As a reward for passing his 
examinations in law, Madame Roger took her 
son with her on a trip to Italy, and they had 
just left France together. 

As to the poor Gerards, just one month af- 
ter M. Violette’s death, the old engraver died 
suddenly, of apoplexy, at his work ; and on 
that day there were not fifty francs in the 
house. Around the open grave where they 


1 1 8 The Days of My Youth. 

lowered the obscure and honest artist, there 
was only a group of three women in black, 
who were weeping, and Arn^dee in mourning 
for his father, with a dozen of Gerard’s old 
comrades, whose romantic manes had become 
gray. The family were obliged to sell at once, 
in order to get a little money, what remained 
of proof-sheets in the boxes, some small paint- 
ings, old presents from artist friends who had 
become celebrated, and the last of the ruined 
knick-knacks — indeed all that constituted the 
charm of the house. Then, in order that her 
eldest daughter might not be so far from the 
boarding-school where she was employed as 
teacher of music, Madame Gerard went to 
live in Rue Saint-Pierre, in Montmartre, where 
they found a little cheap, first-floor apartment, 
with a garden as large as one’s hand. 

Now that he was reduced to his one hun- 
dred and twenty-five francs, Am6dee was 
obliged to leave his too expensive apartment 
in the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, and to 
sell the greater part of his family furniture. 
He only kept his books and enough to furnish 
his little room, perched under the roof of 
an old house in the Faubourg Saint-Jacques. 

It was far from Montmartre, so he could 
not see his friends as often as he would have 
liked, these friends whom grief in common 
had made dearer than ever to him. One sin- 


The Days of My Youth. 119 

gle consolation remained for him — literary 
work. He blindly threw himself into it, 
deadening his sorrow with the fruitful and 
wonderful opium of poetry and dreams. 
However, he had now commenced to make 
headway, feeling that he had something new 
to say. He had long ago thrown his first 
poems, awkward imitations of favorite authors, 
also his drama after the style of 1830, where 
the two lovers sing a duet at the foot of the 
scaffold, into the fire. He returned to truth 
and simplicity by the longest way, the school- 
boy's road. Taste and inclination both in- 
duced him to express simply and honestly 
what he saw before him ; to express, so far as 
he could, the humble ideal of the poor people 
with whom he had lived in the melancholy 
Parisian suburbs where his infancy was passed ; 
in a word, to paint from nature. He tried, 
feeling that he could succeed ; and in those 
days lived the most beautiful and perfect 
hours of his life — those in which the artist, al- 
ready master of his instrument, having still 
the abundance and vivacity of youthful sensa- 
tions, writes the first words that he knows to 
be good, and writes them with entire disinter- 
estedness, not even thinking that others will 
see them ; working for himself alone and for 
the sole joy of putting in visible form and 
spreading abroad his ideas, his thoughts — all 


120 


The Days of My Youth. 


his heart. Those moments of pure enthusi- 
asm and perfect happiness he could never 
know again, even when he had nibbled at the 
savory food of success and had experienced 
the feverish desire for glory. Delicious hours 
they were, and sacred ones, too, such as can 
only be compared to the divine intoxication 
of first love. 

Amedee worked courageously during the 
winter months that followed his father’s death. 
He arose at six o’clock in the morning, lighted 
his lamp and the little stove which heated his 
room, and walking up and down, leaning over 
his page, the poet would vigorously commence 
his struggle with fancies, ideas, and words. 
At nine o’clock he would go out and break- 
fast at a neighboring creamery ; after which 
he would go to his office. There, his tiresome 
papers once written, he had two or three 
hours of leisure, which he employed by read- 
ing and taking notes from the volumes bor- 
rowed by him every morijiing at a reading- 
room on Rue Royer-Collard ; for he had 
already learned that one left college nearly 
ignorant and having, at best, but learned to 
study. He left the office at nightfall and 
reached his room through the Boulevard des 
Invalides, and Montparnasse, which at this 
time was yet planted with venerable elms ; 
sometimes the lamplighter would be ahead of 


The Days of My Youth. 121 

him, making the large gas-jets shoot out un- 
der the leafless old trees. This walk, that 
Amedee imposed upon himself for health’s 
sake, would bring him, about six o’clock, a 
workman’s appetite for his dinner, in the lit- 
tle creamery situated in front of Val-de-Grace, 
where he had formed the habit of going. 
Then he would return to his garret, and re- 
light his stove and lamp, and work until mid- 
night. This ardent continuous effort, this 
will-tension kept in his mind t\e warmth, ani- 
mation, and excitement indispensable for poet- 
ical production. His mind rapidly expanded, 
ready to receive the germs that were blown to 
him by the mysterious winds of inspiration. 
At times he was astonished to see his pen fill 
the sheet so rapidly that he would stop, filled 
with pride at having thus reduced to obedi- 
ence the words and rhythms, and would ask 
himself what supernatural power had per- 
mitted him to charm these divine wild birds. 

On Sundays, he had his meals brought him 
by the concierge ; working all day and not 
going out until nearly five o’clock in the after- 
noon, to dine with Mamma Gerard. It was 
the only distraction that he allowed himself, or 
rather the only recompense that he permitted 
himself. He walked half across Paris to buy 
a cake in the Rue Fontaine for their dessert ; 
then he climbed without fatigue, thanks to his 


122 


The Days of My Youth. 


young legs, to the top of Montmartre, lighted 
by swinging lamps, where one could almost 
believe one’s self in the distant corner of some 
province. They would be waiting for him to 
serve the soup, and the young man would seat 
himself between the widow and the two orphans. 

Alas ! how hard these poor ladies’ lives had 
become ! Damourette, a member of the In- 
stitute, remembered that he had once joked in 
the studios with Gerard, and obtained a small 
annual pension for the widow ; but it was 
charity — hardly enough to pay the rent. For- 
tunately Louise, who already looked like an 
old maid at twenty-three, going about the city 
all day with her roll of music under her black 
shawl, had many pupils, and more than twen- 
ty houses had well-nigh become uninhabita- 
ble through her exertions with little girls, 
whose red hands made an unendurable racket 
with their chromatic scales. Louise’s earnings 
constituted the surest part of their revenue. 
What a strange paradox is the social life in 
large cities, where “ Weber’s Last Waltz ” will 
bring the price of a four-pound loaf of bread, 
and one pays the grocer with the proceeds of 
“ Boccherini’s Minuet ! ” 

In spite of all, they had hard work to make 
both ends meet at the Gerards. The pretty 
Maria wished to make herself useful and aid 
her mother and sister. She had always shown 


The Days of My Youth. 


123 


great taste for drawing, and her father used to 
give her lessons in pastel. Now she went to 
the Louvre to work, and tried to copy the 
Chardins and Latours. She went there alone. 
It was a little imprudent, she was so pretty ; 
but Louise had no time to go with her, and 
her mother had to be at home to attend to the 
house-work and cooking. Maria’s appearance 
had already excited the hearts of several young 
daubers. There were several cases of persist- 
ent sadness and loss of appetite in Flandrin’s 
studio ; and two of Signol’s pupils, who were 
surprised hovering about the young artist, 
were hated secretly as rivals ; certain projects 
of duels, after the American fashion, were pro- 
foundly considered. To say that Maria was 
not a little flattered to see all of these admirers 
turn timidly and respectfully toward her ; to 
pretend that she took off her hat and hung it 
on one corner of her easel because the heat 
from the furnace gave her neuralgia and not 
to show her beautiful hair, would be as much 
of a lie as a politician’s promise. However, 
the little darling was very serious, or at least 
tried to be. She worked conscientiously and 
made some progress. Her last copy of the 
portrait of that Marquise who holds a pug dog 
in her lap with a ribbon about his neck, was 
not very bad. This copy procured a good 
piece of luck for the young artist. 


124 


TJie Days of My Youth, 


Pere Issacar, a bric-a-brac merchant on the 
Ouai Voltaire — an old-fashioned Jew with a 
filthy overcoat, the very sight of which made 
one long to tear it off — approached Maria one 
day, just as she was about to sketch a rose in 
the Marquise’s powdered wig, and after raising 
a hat greasy enough to make the soup for a 
whole regiment, said to her : 

“ Matamoiselle, vould you make me von 
dozen vamily bordraits ? ” 

The young girl did not at first understand 
his abominable language, but at last he made 
her understand. 

Every thing is bought nowadays, even rank, 
provided of course that one has a purse suffi- 
ciently well filled. Nothing is simpler ! In 
return for a little money, you can procure at 
the Vatican — second corridor on your right, 
third door at the left — a brand-new title of 
Roman Count. A heraldic agency — see ad- 
vertisement — will plant and make grow at 
your will a genealogical tree, under whose 
shade you can give a country breakfast to 
twenty-five people. You buy a castle with 
port-holes — the port-holes are necessary — in 
a corner of some reactionary* province. You 
call upon the lords of the surrounding castles 
with a gold fleur-de-lys in your cravat. You 
pose as an enraged Legitimist and ferocious 
Clerical. You give dinners and hunting par- 


The Days of My Youth. 


125 


ties, and the game is won. I will wager that 
your son will marry into a Faubourg Saint- 
Germain family, a family which authentically 
descends from the Crusaders. 

In order to execute this agreeable buffoon- 
ery, you must not forget certain accessor- 
ies — particularly portraits of your ancestors. 
They should ornament the castle walls where 
you regale the country nobles. One must use 
tact in the selection of this family gallery. 
There must be no exaggeration. Do not look 
too high. Do not claim as the founder of your 
race a knight in armor hideously painted up- 
on wood, with his coat-of-arms in one corner 
of the panel. Bear in mind the date of chiv- 
alry. Be satisfied with the head of a dynasty 
whose gray beard hangs over a well-crimped 
ruff. I saw a very good example of that kind 
the other day on Place Royale. A dog was 
just showing his disrespect to it as I passed. 
You can obtain an ancestor like this in the out- 
skirts of the city for fifteen francs, if you hag- 
gle a little. Or you need not give yourself 
so much trouble. Apply to a specialist, Pere 
Issacar, for instance. He will procure magnifi- 
cent ancestors for you ! not dear either ! If 
you will consent to descend to simple magis- 
trates, the price will be insignificant. Chief- 
justices are dirt cheap. Naturally, if you 
wish to be of the military profession, to have 


126 


The Days of My Youth, 


eminent clergy among your antecedents, the 
price increases. Pere Issacar is the only one 
who can give you, at a reasonable rate, ermine- 
draped bishops, or a colonel with a Louis XIV. 
wig, and, if you wish it, a blue ribbon and a 
breast-plate under his red coat. What pro- 
duces a good effect in a series of family por- 
traits is a series of pastels. What would you 
say to a goggle-eyed abbe, or an old lady in- 
decently d6collet6e, or a captain of dragoons 
wearing a tiger-skin cap (it is ten francs more 
if he has the cross of Saint Louis) ? Pere 
Issacar knows his business, and always has in 
reserve thirty of these portraits in charming 
frames of the period, made expressly for him 
in Faubourg Saint-Antoine, and which have all 
been buried fifteen days and riddled with shot, 
in order to have the musty appearance and in- 
dispensable worm-holes. 

You can understand now why the estimable 
Jew, in passing through the Louvre for his 
weekly promenade, took an interest in little 
Maria copying the charming Marquise de La- 
tour. He was just at this time short of pow- 
dered marquises, and they are always very 
much in demand. He begged the young 
woman to take her copy home and make twelve 
more of it, varying only the color of the dress 
and some particular detail in each portrait. 
Thus, instead of the pug dog, marquise No. i 


The Days of My YotUh. 


127 


would hold a King Charles spaniel, No. 2 a 
monkey, No. 3 a bonbon box. No. 4 a fan. 
The face could remain the same. All mar- 
quises looked alike to Pere Issacar; he only 
exacted that they should all be provided with 
two black patches, one under the right eye, 
the other on the left shoulder. This he in- 
sisted upon, for the patch in his eyes was a 
symbol of the eighteenth century. 

Pere Issacar was a fair man and promised 
to furnish frames, paper, and pastels, and to 
pay the young girl fifteen francs for each mar- 
quise. What was better yet, he promised^ if 
he was pleased with the first work, to order of 
the young artist a dozen canoness of Remire- 
mont and a half-dozen of royal gendarmes. 

I wish that you could have seen these ladies 
when Maria went home to tell the good news. 
Louise had just returned from distributing 
semi-quavers in the city ; her eyes and poor 
mother Gerard’s were filled with tears of joy. 

^‘What, my darling,” said the mother, em- 
bracing her child, “ are you going to trouble 
yourself about our necessaries of life, too ? ” 

“ Do you see this little sister ? ” said Louise, 
laughing cordially. “ She is going to earn a 
pile of money as large as she is herself. Do 
you know that I am jealous — I, with my piano 
and my displeasing profession ? Good luck to 
pastel ! It is not noisy, it will not annoy the 


128 


The Days of My Youth. 


neighbors, and when you are old you can say, 
have never played for anybody.” 

But Maria did not wish them to joke. They 
had always treated her like a doll, a spoiled 
child, who only knew how to do her hair and 
tumble her dresses. Well ! they would see ! 

When Amedee arrived on Sunday with his 
cake, they told him over several times the 
whole story, with a hundred details, and 
showed him the two marquises that Maria 
had already finished, and who wore patches as 
large as wafers. 

She appeared that day more attractive and 
charming than ever to the young man, and it 
was then that he conceived his first ambition. 
If he only had enough talent to get out of his 
obscurity and poverty, and could become a 
famous writer and easily earn his living ! It 
was not impossible, after all. Oh ! with what 
pleasure he would ask this exquisite child to 
be his wife ! How sweet it would be to know 
that she was happy with, and proud of, him ! 
But he must not think of it now, they were 
too poor ; and then, would Maria love him ? 

He often asked himself that question, and 
with uneasiness. In his own heart he felt 
that the childish intimacy had become, a sin- 
cere affection, a real love. He had no reason 
to hope that the same transformation had 
taken place in the young girl’s heart. She 


The Days of My Youth. 


129 


always treated him very affectionately, but 
rather like a good comrade, and she was no 
more stirred by his presence now than she 
was when she laid in wait with him behind 
the old green sofa to hunt Father Gerard’s 
battered fur hat. 

Amedee had most naturally taken the Ge- 
rard family into his confidence as regarded 
his work. After the Sunday dinner they 
would seat themselves around the table where 
Mamma Gerard had just served the coffee, 
and the young man would read to his friends, 
in a grave, slow voice, the poem he had com- 
posed during the week. A painter having the 
taste and inclination for interior scenes, like 
the old masters of the Dutch school, would 
have been stirred by the contemplation of 
this group of four persons in mourning. The 
poet, with his manuscript in his right hand 
and marking the syllables with a rhythmical 
movement of his left, was seated between the 
two sisters. But while Louise — a little too 
thin and faded for her years — fixes her atten- 
tive eyes upon the reader and listens with 
avidity, the pretty Maria is listless and sits 
with a bored little face, gazing mechanically 
at the other side of the table. Mother Ge- 
rard knits with a serious air and her glasses 
perched upon the tip of her nose. 

Alas ! during these readings Louise was the 
9 


130 The Days of My Youth. 

only one who heaved sighs of emotion ; and 
sometimes even great tear-drops would trem- 
ble upon her lashes. She was the only one 
who could find just the right delicate word 
with which to congratulate the poet, and show 
that she had understood and been touched by 
his verses. At the most Maria would some- 
times accord the young poet, still agitated by 
the declamation of his lines, an “It is very 
pretty ! ” in a careless tone and with a com- 
monplace smile of thanks. 

She did not care for poetry, then ? Later, 
if he married her, would she remain indifferent 
to her husband’s intellectual life, insensible 
even to the glory that he might reap ? How 
sad it was for Amedee to have to ask himself 
that question ! 

Soon Maria inspired a new fear within 
him. 

Maurice and his mother had been three 
months already in Italy, and excepting two 
letters that he had received from Milan, at 
the commencement of his journey, in the first 
flush of his enthusiasm, Amedee had had no 
news from his friend. He excused this negli- 
gence on the part of the lazy Maurice, who 
had smilingly told him, on the eve of depart- 
ure, not to count upon hearing from him regu- 
larly. At each visit that Amedee paid the 
Gerards, Maria always asked him, 


The Days of My Youth. 


“ Have you received any news from your 
friend Maurice ? ” 

At first he had paid no attention to this, 
but her persistency at length astonished him, 
planting a little germ of suspicion and alarm in 
his heart. Maurice Roger had only paid the 
Gerards a few visits during the father’s life- 
time, and accompanied on each occasion by 
Amedee. ‘He had always observed the most 
respectful manner toward Maria, and they 
had perhaps exchanged twenty words. Why 
should Maria preserve such a particular re- 
membrance of a person so nearly a stranger 
to her ? Was it possible that he had made so 
deep an impression, perhaps even inspired a 
sentiment of love ? Did slie conceal in the 
depths of her heart, when she thought of him, 
a tender hope ? Was she watching for him ? 
Did she wish him to return ? 

When these fears crossed Amedee’s mind, 
he felt a choking sensation, and his heart was 
troubled. Happy Maurice, who had only to 
be seen to please ! But immediately, with a 
blush of shame, the generous poet chased 
away this jealous fancy. But every Sunday, 
when Maria, lowering her eyes, and with a 
slightly embarrassed voice, repeated her ques- 
tion, “ Have you received any news from Mon- 
sieur Maurice ?” Amedee felt a cruelly discour- 
aged feeling and thought with deep sadness : 


132 


The Days of My Youth, 


“ She will never love me ! ” 

To conquer this new grief he plunged still 
more deeply into work ; but he did not find 
his former animation and energy. After the 
drizzling rain of the last days of March, the 
spring arrived. Now, when Amedee awoke, it 
was broad daylight at six o’clock in the morn- 
ing. Opening his mansard window, he ad- 
mired, above the tops of the roofs, the large 
ruddy sun rising in the soft gray sky, and from 
the convent gardens beneath came a fresh 
odor of grass and damp earth. Under the 
shade of the arched lindens which led to the 
shrine of a plaster Virgin, a first and almost 
imperceptible rustle, a presentiment of ver- 
dure, so to speak, ran through the branches, 
and the three almond-trees in the kitchen- 
garden put forth their delicate flowers. The 
young poet was invaded by an overwhelming 
and sweet languor, and Maria’s face, which 
was commonly before his inner vision upon 
awakening, became confused and passed from 
his mind. He seated himself for a moment 
before a table and re-read the last lines of a 
page that he had commenced ; but he was im- 
mediately overcome by physical lassitude, and 
abandoned himself to thought, saying to him- 
self that he was twenty years old, and that it 
would be very good, after all, to enjoy life. 


CHAPTER X. 


It is the first of May, and the lilacs in the 
Luxembourg gardens are in blossom. It has 
just struck four o’clock. The bright sun and 
the pure sky have rendered more odious than 
ever the captivity of the office to Amedee, 
and he departs before the end of the sitting 
for a stroll in the Medicis garden around the 
pond, where, for the amusement of the chil- 
dren in that quarter, a little breeze from the 
northeast is pushing on a miniature flotilla. 
Suddenly he hears himself called by a voice 
which bursts out like a brass band at a country 
fete. 

“ Good-day, Violette.” 

It is Jocquelet, the future comedian with 
his turned-up nose, which cuts the air like the 
prow of a first-class ironclad, superb, tri- 
umphant, dressed like a Brazilian, shaved to 
the quick, the dearest hope of Regnier’s class 
at the Conservatoire — Jocquelet, who has made 
an enormous success in an act from the “ Pre- 
cieuses,” at the last quarter’s examination — 
he says so himself, without any useless mod- 


134 


The Days of My Youth. 


esty — Jocquelet, who will certainly have the 
first comedy prize at the next examination, 
and will make his debut without delay at the 
Comedie Frangaise ! All this he announces 
in one breath, like a speech learned by heart, 
with his terrible voice, like a quack selling 
shaving-paste from a gilded carriage. In two 
minutes that favorite word of theatrical people 
had been repeated thirty times, punctuating 
the phrases, “ I ! I ! I ! I ! ” 

Amedee is only half pleased at the meeting. 
Jocquelet was always a little too noisy to please 
him. After all he was an old comrade, and out 
of politeness the poet congratulated him upon 
his success. 

Jocquelet questioned him. What was 
Amedee doing ? What had become of him ? 
Where was his literary work ? All this was 
asked with such cordiality and warmth of 
manner that one would have thought that 
Jocquelet was interested in Amedee, and had 
a strong friendship for him. Nothing of the 
sort. Jocquelet was interested in only one 
person in this world, and that person was 
named Jocquelet. One is either an actor or 
he is not. This personage was always one 
wherever he was — in an omnibus, while 
putting on his suspenders, even with the one 
that he loved. When he said to a new-comer, 
“ How do you do ? ” he put so much feeling 


The Days of My Youth, 


135 


into this very original question, that the one 
questioned asked himself if he really had not 
just recovered from a long and dangerous ill- 
ness. Now, at this time Jocquelet found him- 
self in the presence of an unknown and poor 
young poet. What role ought such an emi- 
nent person as himself to play under such 
circumstances? To show affection for the 
young man, calm his timidity, and patronize 
him without too much haughtiness ; that was 
the position to take, and Jocquelet acted it. 

Amedee was an artless dupe, and touched 
by the interest shown him, he frankly replied, 
“ Well, my dear friend, I have worked hard 
this winter. I am not dissatisfied. I think 
that I have made some progress ; but if you 
knew how hard and difficult it is ! ” 

He was going to confide to Jocquelet the 
doubts and sufferings of a sincere artist, but 
Jocquelet, as we have said, only thinks of 
himself, and brusquely interrupts the young 
poet : 

“You do not happen to have a poem with 
you — something short, a hundred or a hun- 
dred and fifty lines — a poem intended for ef- 
fect, that one could recite ? ” 

Amedee had copied out that very day, at the 
office, a war story^ a heroic episode of Sebas- 
topol that he had heard Colonel Lantz relate 
not long since at Madame Roger’s, and had 


136 


The Days of My Youth. 


put into verse with a good French sentiment 
and quite the military spirit, verse which sav- 
ored of powder, and went off like reports of 
musketry. He took the sheets out of his 
pocket, and leading the comedian into a soli- 
tary by-path of sycamores which skirted tlie 
Luxembourg orangery, he read his poem to 
him in a low voice. Jocquelet, who did not 
lack a certain literary instinct, was very en- 
thusiastic, for he foresaw a success for him- 
self, and said to the poet : 

“You read those verses just like a poet, 
that is, very badly. But no matter, this battle 
is very effective, and I see what I could do 
with it — with my voice. But what do you 
mean ? ” added he, planting himself in front 
of his friend. “ Do you write verses like 
these and nobody knows anything about them ? 
It is absurd. Do you wish, then, to imitate 
Chatterton ? It is an old play, entirely used 
up ! You must push yourself, show yourself. 
I will take charge of that myself ! Your even- 
ing is free, is it not ? Very well, come with 
me ; before six o’clock I shall have told your 
name to twenty trumpeters, who will make all 
Paris resound with the news that there is a 
poet in Faubourg Saint-Jacques. I will 
wager, you savage, that you have never put 
your foot into the Cafe de Seville. Why, my 
dear fellow, it is our first manufactory of 


The Days of My Yotcth. 


137 


fame ! ! Here is the Odeon omnibus, go on ! 
We shall be at the Boulevard Montmartre in 
twenty minutes, and I am going to baptize 
you there, as a great man, with a glass of ab- 
sinthe.” 

Dazzled and carried away, Amedee humor- 
ed him and climbed upon the outside of the 
omnibus with his comrade. The vehicle hur- 
ried them quickly along toward the quay, 
crossed the Seine, the Carrousel, and passed 
before the Theatre-Fran9ais, at which Jocque- 
let, thinking of his approaching debut, shook 
his fist, exclaiming, “ Now I am ready for 
you ! ” Here the young men were planted 
upon the asphalt boulevard, in front of the 
Cafe de Seville. 

Do not go to-day to see this old incubator, 
in which so many political and literary celeb- 
rities have been hatched out ; for you will 
only find a cafe, just like any other, with its 
groups of ugly little Jews who discuss the 
coming races, and here and there a poor creat- 
ure, painted like a Jezebel, dying of chagrin 
over her pot of beer. 

At the decline of the second empire — it was - 
May I, 1866, that Amedee Violette entered 
there for the first time — the Cafe de Seville 
passed for, and with reason too, one of the 
most remarkable places in Paris. For this 
glorious establishment had furnished by itself, 


138 The Days of My Youth. 

or nearly so, the eminent staff of our third 
Republic ! Be honest, Monsieur le prefet, 
who presided at the opening of the agricul- 
tural meeting in our province, and who played 
the peacock in your dress-coat embroidered 
in silver before an imposing line of horned 
creatures ; be honest and admit, that, at the 
time when you opposed the official candidates 
in your democratic journal, you had your pipe 
in the rack of the Cafe de Seville, with your 
name in white enamel ‘upon the blackened 
bowl ! Remember, Monsieur le depute, who 
voted against all the exemption cases of the 
military law, remember who in this very place, 
at your daily game of dominoes for sixty 
points, more than a hundred times ranted 
against the permanent army — you accustomed 
to the uproar of assemblies and the noise of 
the tavern — contributed to the parliamentary 
victories by crying, “ Six all ! count that ! ” 
And you too, Monsieur le ministre, to whom 
an office-boy, dating from the tyrants, still says, 
“ Your excellency,” witliout offending you ; 
you also have been a constant frequenter of 
the Cafe de Seville, and such a faithful cus- 
tomer that the cashier calls you by your Chris- 
tian name. And do you recall, Monsieur the 
future president of the Council, that you did 
not acquit yourself very well when the seden- 
tary dame, who has never been seen to rise 


The Days of My Youth. 


139 


from her stool and who, as a joker pretended, 
was afflicted with two wooden legs, called you 
by a little sign to tlie desk, and said to you, 
not without a shade of severity in her tone : 
“ Monsieur Eugene, we must be thinking of 
this little bill.” 

In spite of his title of poet, Amedee had not 
the gift of prophesy. While seeing all these 
negligently dressed men seated outside at the 
Cafe de Seville’s tables, taking appetizers, the 
young man never suspected that he had be- 
fore him the greater part of the legislators 
destined to assure, some years later, France’s 
happiness. Otherwise he would have respect- 
fully taken note of each drinker and the color 
of his drink, since at a later period this would 
have been very useful to him as a mnemonical 
method for the understanding of our parlia- 
mentary combinations, which are a little com- 
plicated, we must admit. For example, would 
it not have been handy and agreeable to note 
down that the recent law on sugars had been 
voted by the solid majority of absinthe and 
bitters, or to know that the Cabinet’s fall, day 
before yesterday, might be attributed simply 
to the disloyal and perfidious abandonment of 
the bitter mints or black currant wine ? 

Jocquelet, who professed the most advanced 
opinions in politics, distributed several riotous 
and patronizing hand -shakes among these 


I4C> The Days of My Youth. 

future statesmen as he entered the establish- 
ment, followed by Amedee. 

Here, there was still more of politics, but 
also poets and literary men. They lived a 
sort of hurly-burly life, on good terms, but 
one could not get them confounded, for the 
political people were all beard, the literary 
ones, all hair. 

Jocquelet directed his steps without hesita- 
tion toward the magnificent red head of the 
whimsical poet, Paul Sillery, a handsome 
young fellow with a wide-awake face, who was 
nonchalantly stretched out upon the red velvet 
cushion of the window seat, before a table, 
around which were three other thick heads of 
hair worthy of our early kings. 

“My dear Paul,” said Jocquelet, in his most 
thrilling voice, handing Sillery Amedee’s 
manuscript. “ Here are some verses that I 
think are superb, and I am going to recite 
them as soon as I can, at some entertainment 
or benefit. Read them and give us your 
opinion of them. I present their author to 
you, M. Amedee Violette. Amedee, I present 
you to M. Paul Sillery.” 

All the heads of hair, they framed young 
and amiable faces, turned curiously toward 
the new-comer, whom Paul Sillery courteously 
invited to be seated, with the established 
formula, “What will you take?” Then he 


The Days of My Youth. 141 

commenced to read the lines that the come- 
dian had given him. 

Arnedee, seated on the edge of his chair, 
was distracted with timidity, for Paul Sillery 
already enjoyed a certain reputation as a ris- 
ing poet, and had established a small literary 
sheet called “ The Guepef which published 
upon its first page caricatures of celebrated 
men with large heads and little bodies, and 
Arnedee had read in it some of Paul’s poems, 
full of impertinence and charm. An author 
whose work has been published ! An editor of 
a journal ! It was something enormous for poor 
innocent Violette, who was not aware then 
that the Guepe could not claim forty sub- 
scribers. He considered Sillery as something 
wonderful, and waited for the verdict of so 
formidable a judge with a beating heart. At 
the end of a few moments Sillery said, without 
raising his eyes from the manuscript : 

“ Listen ! Here are some fine verses.” 

A flood of delight filled the heart of the poet 
from the Faubourg Saint-Jacques. 

As soon as he had finished his reading, Paul 
arose from his seat, and extending both hands 
over the caraffes and glasses to Arnedee, said, 
enthusiastically : 

“ Let me shake hands with you ! Your de- 
scription of the battle-scene is astonishing ! 
It is admirable ! Clear and precise like Meri- 


142 


The Days of My Youth, 


mee, it has all the color and imagination that 
he lacks to make him a poet. It is something 
absolutely new. My dear Monsieur Violette, 
I congratulate you with all my heart ! I can- 
not ask you for this beautiful poem for the 
Gucpe that Jocquelet is so fortunate as to 
have to recite, and of which I hope he will 
make a success. But I beg of you, as a great 
favor, to let me have some verses for my 
paper ; they will be, I am sure, as good as 
these, if not better. To be sure, I forgot to tell 
you that we shall not be able to pay you for 
the copy, as the Gucpe does not prosper ; 
I will even admit that it only stands on one leg. 
In order to make it appear for a few months 
longer, I have recently been obliged to go to 
a moneylender, who has left me, instead of the 
classical stuffed crocodile, a trained horse 
which he had just taken from an insolvent cir- 
cus. I mounted the noble animal to go to the 
Bois, but at Place de la Concorde he com- 
menced to waltz around it, and I was obliged 
to get rid of this dancing quacTruped at a con- 
siderable loss. Your contribution to the 
Guepe would then have to be gratuitous, like 
all the rest. You will give me the credit of 
having saluted you first of all, my dear Vio- 
lette, by the rare and glorious title of true 
poet. You will let me reserve the pleasure of 
getting you good and tipsy with the odor that 


The Days of My Youth. 143 

a printer’s first proofs give, will you not ? Is 
it agreed ? ” 

Yes, it was agreed ! That is to say, Amedee, 
touched to the depths of his heart by so much 
good grace and fraternal cordiality, was so 
troubled in trying to find words to express 
his gratitude, that he made a terrible botch 
of it. 

“ Do not thank me,” said Paul Sillery, with 
his pleasant but rather sceptical smile, “ and 
do not think me better than I am. If all of 
your verses are as strong as these that I have 
just read, you will soon publish a volume that 
will make a sensation, and who knows, perhaps 
will inspire me first of all with an ugly attack 
of jealousy. Poets are no better than other 
people ; they are like the majority of Adam’s 
sons, vain and envious, only they still keep the 
ability to admire, and the gift of enthusiasm, 
and that is their superiority and to their 
credit. I am delighted to have found a mare’s 
nest to-day, an original and sincere poet, and 
with your permission we will celebrate this 
happy meeting. The price of the waltzing horse 
having hardly sufficed to pay off the debt to the 
publisher of the Guepe I am hot in funds this 
evening ; but I have credit at Pere Lebuffle’s, 
and I invite you all to dinner at his pot-house ; 
after which we will go to my rooms, where I 
expect a few friends, and there you will read 


144 


The Days of My Youth. 


us your verses, Violette ; we will all read some 
and have a fine orgie of rich rhymes.” 

This proposition was received with favor by 
the three young men with the long hair, a la 
Clodion and Chilperic. As for Violette, he 
would have followed, at that moment, Paul 
Sillery if it had been into the infernal regions. 

Jocquelet only could not go with them, he 
had promised, so he said, his evening to a 
lady, and he gave this excuse with such a 
conceited smile, that all were convinced that 
he was going to crown himself with the most 
flattering of laurels at the mansion of some 
princess of the royal blood. In reality, he was 
going to see one of his Conservatoire friends, 
a large lanky dowdy, as swarthy as a mole 
and full of pretensions, who was destined for 
the tragic line of character, and inflicted upon 
her lover Athalie’s dream, Camille’s impre- 
cations, and Phaedre’s monologue. 

After paying for the refreshments, Sillery 
gave his arm to Amedee, and followed by the 
three Merovingians, they left the cafe, and 
forcing their way through the crowd which 
obstructed the sidewalk of Faubourg Mont- 
martre, he conducted his guests to Pere Le- 
buffle’s table-d’hote, which was situated-on the 
third floor of a dingy old house in Rue La- 
martine, whose sickening odor of burnt meat 
greeted them as soon as they reached the top 


The Days of My Youth. 


145 


of the stairs. They found there, seated before 
a tablecloth remarkable for the quantity of 
its wine-stains, two or three wild-looking 
heads of hair, and four or live shaggy beards, 
to whom Pere Lebuffle was serving soup, 
aided by a tired-looking servant. The name 
under which Sillery had designated the pro- 
prietor of the table-d’hote might have been a 
nick-name, for this stout individual in his 
shirt-sleeves recommended himself to one’s 
attention by his bovine face and his gloomy, 
wandering eyes. To Amedee’s amazement, 
Pere Lebuffle called the greater part of his 
clients “ thou,” and as soon as the new- 
comers were seated at table, Amedee asked 
, Sillery, in a low voice, the cause of this famil- 
iarity. 

“ It is caused by the hard times, my dear 
Violette,” responded the editor of the Guepe 
as he unfolded his napkin. There is no 
longer a ‘ Maecenas ’ or ‘ Lawrence the Magni- 
ficent.’ The last patron of literature and art 
is Pere Lebuffle. This wretched cook, who 
has perhaps never read a book or seen a 
picture, has a fancy for painters and poets, 
and allows them to cultivate that plant. Debt, 
which, contrary to other vegetables, grows all 
the more, the less it is watered with instal- 
ments. We must pardon the good man,” said 
he, lowering his voice, “ his little sin, a sort of 
10 


146 The Days of My Youth. 

vanity. He wishes to be treated like a com- 
rade and friend by the artists. Those who 
have several accounts brought forward upon 
his ledger, arrive at the point of calling him 
‘ thou,’ and I, alas ! am of that number. 
Thanks to that, I am going to make you 
drink something a little less purgative than 
the so-called wine which is turning blue in 
that caraffe, and which I advise you to be 
suspicious of. I say, Lebuffle, my friend here, 
M. Amedee Violette, will be, sooner or later, a 
celebrated poet. Treat him accordingly, my 
good fellow, and go and get us a bottle of 
Moulin-a-Vent.” 

The conversation meanwhile became gen- 
eral between the bearded and long-haired men. 
Is it necessary to say that they were all ani- 
mated, those in politics and those in literature, 
with the most revolutionary sentiments ? At 
the very beginning, with the sardines, which 
evidently had been pickled in lamp-oil, a ter- 
ribly hairy man, the darkest of them all, with 
a beard that grew up into its owner’s eyes and 
then sprung out again in tufts from his nose 
and ears, presented some elegiac regrets to 
the memory of Jean-Paul Marat ; and declared 
that at the next revolution it would be neces- 
sary to realize the programme of that delight- 
ful friend of the people, and make one hun- 
dred thousand heads fall. 


The Days of My Youth. 


147 


“ By thunder, Flambard, you have a heavy 
hand !” exclaimed one of the least important 
of beards, one of those that degenerate into 
side whiskers as they become conservative. 
“ One hundred thousand heads ! ” 

“ It is the minimum,” replied the sanguinary 
beard. 

Now, it had just been revealed to Amedee, 
that under this ferocious beard was concealed 
a photographer, well known for his failures, 
and the young man could not help thinking 
that if the one hundred thousand heads in 
question had posed before the said Flambard’s 
camera, he would not show such impatience to 
see them fall under the guillotine. 

The conversation of the men with the heavy 
heads of hair was none the less anarchical 
when the roast appeared, which sprung from 
the legendary animal called vache enragee. The 
longest and thickest of all the shock heads, 
which spread over the shoulders of a young 
story-writer — between us, be it said, he made 
a mistake in not combing it oftener — imparted 
to his brother manes the subject for his new 
novel, which truly ought to have made the 
others’ heads bristle up with terror ; for the 
principal episode in this agreeable fiction was 
the desecration of a dead body in a cemetery 
in the moonlight. There was a sort of hesita- 
tion in the audience, a slight movement of re- 


148 


The Days of My Youth. 


coil, and Sillery, with a dash of raillery in his 
glance, asked the novelist : 

“ Why the devil do you write such a story ? ” 

The novelist replied in a thundering tone : 

“ To astonish the bourgeois ! " 

And nobody made the slightest objection. 

To “astonish the bourgeois” was the dear- 
est hope and most ardent wish of these young 
men, and this desire betrayed itself in their 
slightest word ; and doubtless Amedee thought 
it legitimate and even worthy of praise. 
However, he, did not believe — must we admit 
his lack of confidence — that so many glorious 
efforts were ever crowned with success. He 
went so far as to ask himself if the character 
and cleverness of these bourgeois would not 
lead them to ignore not only the works, but 
even the existence, of the authors who sought 
to “astonish” them; and he thought, not 
without sadness, that when the Guepe should 
have published this young novelist’s ghostly 
composition, the unconquerable bourgeois 
would know nothing about it, and would 
continue to devote itself to its favorite cus- 
toms, such as tapping the barometer to know 
if there was a change, or to heave a deep sigh 
after having guzzled its soup, saying, “ I feel 
better,” without being the least astonished in 
the world. 

In spite of these mental reservations, that 


The Days of My Youth. 


149 


Amedee reproached himself with, being him- 
self an impure and contemptible Philistine, 
the poet was delighted with his new friends 
and the unknown world which was opening be- 
fore him. In this Bohemian corner, where one 
got intoxicated with wild excesses and para- 
doxes, recklessness and gayety reigned. There 
was the sovereign charm of youth there, and 
Am6d^e, who had until now lived in a dark 
hiding-place, blossomed out in this warm at- 
mosphere. 

After a horrible dessert of cheese and prunes, 
Pere Lebuffle’s guests dispersed. Sillery es- 
corted Amedee and the three Merovingians to 
the little sparsely-furnished first floor in Rue 
Pigalle, where he lived ; and half a dozen other 
lyrics, who might have furnished some mag- 
nificent trophies for an Apache warrior’s scalp- 
ing-knife, soon came to reinforce the club 
which met there every Wednesday evening. 

Seats were wanting at the beginning, but 
Sillery drew from out of a closet an old black 
trunk which would hold two, and contented 
himself, as master of the house, with sitting from 
time to time, with legs dangling, upon the mar- 
ble mantel. The company thus found them- 
selves very comfortable ; still more so, when an 
old woman with a dirty cap had placed upon 
the table, in the middle of the room, six bottles 
of beer, some odd glasses, and a large flowered 


The Days of My Youth. 


150 

plate upon which was a package of cut to- 
bacco with cigarette paper. They commenced 
to recite their verses in a cloud of smoke. 
Each one recited his own, called upon by Sil- 
lery; each would arise without being urged, 
place his chair in front of him, and leaning one 
hand upon its back, would recite his poem or 
elegy. Certainly some of them were wanting 
in genius, some were even ludicrous. Among 
the number was a little fellow with a cadaver- 
ous face about as large as two farthings worth 
of butter, who declared, in a long speech with 
flat rhymes, that an Asiatic’s harem was not 
capable of quenching his ardent love of pleas- 
ure. A fat-faced fellow with a good, healthy 
country complexion, announced, in a long 
story, his formal intention of dying of a de- 
cline, on account of the treason of a courtesan 
with a face as cold as marble ; while, if the 
facts were known, this peaceable boy lived 
with an artless child of the people, brighten- 
ing her lot by reducing her to a state of slav- 
ery ; she blacked his boots for him every 
morning before he left the house. 

In spite of these ridiculous things, there 
were present some genuine poets who knew 
their business and had real talent. These 
filled Amedee with respect and fear, and when 
Sillery called his name, he arose with a dry 
mouth and heavy heart. 


“ It is your turn now, you new-comer ! re- 
cite us your ‘ Before Sebastopol.’ ” 

However, thoroughbred that he was, Ame- 
dee overcame his emotion and recited, in a 
thrilling voice, his military rhymes, that rang 
out like the report of a veteran’s gun. 

The last verse of the poem was greeted with 
loud applause, and all of the auditors arose 
and surrounded Amedee to offer him their 
congratulations. 

“ Why, it is superb !” 

“ Entirely new ! ” 

“ It will make an enormous success ! ” 

“ It is just what is needed to arouse the 
public ! ” 

“ Recite us something else ! — something 
else ! ” 

Reassured and encouraged, master of him- 
self, he now recited a popular scene in which 
he had freely poured out his love for the poor 
people. He next recited some of his Paris- 
ian country scenes, and then a series of son- 
nets entitled, “ Love’s Hopes,” inspired by his 
dear Maria ; and he astonished all of these 
poets by the versatility and variety of his in- 
spirations. 

At each new poem bravos were thundered 
out, and the young man’s heart expanded with 
joy under this warmth of success. His audi- 
ence vied with each other to approach Arne- 


152 


The Days of My Youth. 


dec first admiringly and shake his hand. 
Alas 1 some of those who were .there would, 
later on, annoy him by their low envy and 
treason ; but now, in the generous frankness 
of their youth, they welcomed him as a mas- 
ter. 

What an intoxicating evening ! Am^dee 
reached his home, about two o’clock in the 
morning, with his hands burning with the 
last grasps, his brain and heart intoxicated 
with the strong wine of praise ; walking with 
long and joyful strides through the fairy scene 
of a beautiful moonlight, in a fresh morning 
wind which made his clothes flutter and ca- 
ressed his face. He thought he even felt the 
breath of fame, 


CHAPTER XL 

Success, which usually is as fickle as justice, 
took long strides and doubled its stations in 
order to reach Amedee. The Cafe de Seville 
and the coterie of long-haired writers were 
busying themselves with the rising poet al- 
ready. His suite of sonnets, published in 
the Gucpe^ pleased some of the journalists 
who reproduced them in portions in well-dis- 
tributed journals. Ten days after Amedee’s 
meeting with Jocquelet, the latter recited his 
poem “ Before Sebastopol ” in a magnificent 
entertainmer.w given at the Gait^ for the bene- 
fit of an illustrious actor who had become 
blind and reduced to poverty. 

This “dramatic solemnity,” to use the lan- 
guage of the advertisement, commenced by 
being terribly tiresome. There was an audi- 
ence present who were accustomed to grand 
Parisian soirees, a blase and satiated public, 
who, upon this warm evening in the suffocat- 
ing theatre, w'ere more fatigued and satiated 
than ever. The sleepy journalists collapsed 
in their chairs, and in the back part of the 
stage-boxes, ladies’ faces, almost green under 


154 


The Days of My Youth. 


paint, showed the excessive lassitude of a long 
winter of pleasure. The Parisians had all 
come there from custom, without having the 
slightest desire to do so ; just as they always 
came like galley-slaves, condemned to “first 
nights.” They were so lifeless that they did 
not even feel the slightest horror at seeing 
each other grow old. This chloroformed 
audience was afflicted with a long and too 
heavy programme, as is the custom in per- 
formances of this kind. They played frag- 
ments of the best known pieces, and sang 
songs from operas long since fallen into dis- 
use even on street organs. This public saw 
the same comedians march out ; the most fa- 
mous are the most monotonous ; the comical 
ones abused their privileges ; the lover spoke 
distractedly through his nose ; the great co- 
quette — the actress par excellence, the last of 
the Celimenes — discharged her part in such a 
sluggish way that when she commenced an 
adverb ending in “ ment,” one would have al- 
most had time to go out and smoke a cigar- 
ette or drink a glass of beer before she reached 
the end of the said adverb. 

But at the most lethargic moment of this 
drowsy soiree, after the comedians from the 
Frangais had played in a stately manner one 
act from a tragedy, Jocquelet appeared. Joc- 
quelet, still a pupil at the Conservatoire, 


The Days of My Youth. 


15s 


showed himself to the public, for the first time 
and by an exceptional grace — Jocquelet, ab- 
solutely unknown, too small in his black-dress 
suit, in spite of the two packs of cards that he 
had put in his boots. He appeared, full of 
audacity, riding his high horse, raising his flat- 
nosed, bull-dog face toward the “gallery gods,” 
and in his voice capable of making Jericho’s 
walls fall or raising Jehoshaphat’s dead, he 
dashed off in one effort, but with intelligence 
and heroic feeling, his comrade’s poem. 

The effect was prodigious. This bold, com- 
mon, but powerful actor, and these pictur- 
esque and modern verses were something en- 
tirely new to this public satiated with old 
trash. What a happy surprise ! Two novel- 
ties at once ! To think of discovering an un- 
heard-of poet and an unknown comedian ! To 
nibble at these two green fruits ! Everybody 
shook off their torpor ; the anaesthetized journ- 
alists aroused themselves ; the colorless and 
sleepy ladies plucked up a little animation ; 
and when Jocquelet had made the last rhyme 
resound like a grand flourish of trumpets, all 
applauded enough to split their gloves. . 

In one of the theatre’s lobbies, behind a bill- 
board pasted over with old placards, Amedee 
Violette heard with delight the sound of the 
applause which seemed like a shower of hail- 
stones. He dared not think of it ! Was it 


The Days of My Youth. 


156 

really his poem that produced so much of an 
excitement ; whicli had thawed this cold pub- 
lic? Soon he did not doubt it, for Jocquelet, 
who had just been recalled three times, threw 
himself into the poet’s arms and glued his per- 
spiring painted face to his. 

“Well, my little one, I have done it ! ” ex- 
claimed he, bursting with gratification and 
vanity. “You heard how I fixed them ! ” 

Immediately twenty, thirty, a hundred spec- 
tators appeared, the most of them very correct 
in white cravats, but all of them eager and 
with beaming countenances, asking to see the 
author and the interpreter, and to be pre- 
sented to them, that they might congratulate 
them with an enthusiastic word and a shake 
of the hand. Yes ! it was a success, an instan- 
taneous one. It was certainly that rare tropi- 
cal flower of the Parisian greenhouse which 
blossoms out so seldom, but so magnificently. 

One large, very common-looking man, wear- 
ing superb diamond shirt buttons, came in 
his turn to shake AmMee’s hand, and in a 
hoarse, husky voice which would have been 
excellent to propose tickets “ cheaper than at 
the office ! ” he asked for the manuscript of 
the poem that had just been recited. 

“It is so that I may put you upon the first 
page of my to-morrow’s edition, young man, 
and I publish eighty thousand. Victor Gail- 


The Days of My Youth. 157 

lard, editor of the Tapage, Does that please 
you ? ” 

He took the manuscript without listening to 
the thanks of the poet, who trembled with joy 
at the thought that his work had caught 
the fancy of this Barnum of the press, the 
foremost advertiser in France and Europe, and 
that his verses would meet the eyes of two 
hundred thousand readers. 

Yes ! it was certainly a success, and he ex- 
perienced the first bitterness of it as soon 
as he arrived the next morning at the Cafe de 
Seville, where he now went every two or three 
days at the hour for absinthe. His verses had 
appeared in that morning’s Tapage^ printed in 
large type and headed by a few lines of praise 
written by Victor Gaillard, a la Barnum. As 
soon as Amedee entered the cafe he saw that 
he was the object of general attention, and the 
lyric gentlemen greeted him with acclamations 
and bravos ; but at certain expressions of coun- 
tenance, constrained looks, and bitter smiles, 
the impressionable young man felt with a sud- 
den sadness that they already envied him. 

“ I warned you of it,” said Paul Sillery to 
him, as he led him into a corner of the cafe. 
“ Our good friends are not pleased, and that 
is very natural. The greater part of these 
rhymers are ‘cheap jewellers,’ and they are 
jealous of a master workman. Above all 


158 The Days of My Youth. 

things, pretend not to notice it ; they will 
never forgive you for guessing their bad 
sentiments. And then you must be indulgent 
to them. You have your beautiful lieutenant’s 
epaulette, Violette, do not be too hard upon 
these poor privates. They also are fighting 
under the poetic flag, and ours is a poverty- 
stricken regiment. Now you must profit by 
your good luck. Here you are celebrated 
in forty-eight hours. Do you see, even the 
political people look at you with curiosity, 
although a poet in the estimation of these 
austere persons is an inferior and useless 
being. It is all they will do to accept Victor 
Hugo, and only on account of his ‘ Chati- 
ments.’ You are then the lion of the day. 
Lose no time. I met just now upon the boule- 
vard Massif, the publisher. He had read the 
Tapage and expects you. Carry him all of 
your poems to-morrow ; there will be enough 
to make a volume. Massif will publish it 
at his own expense, and you will appear before 
the public in one month. You never will 
inveigle a second time that big booby of a 
Gaillard, who took a mere passing fancy for 
you. But no matter ! I know your book, and 
it will be a success. You are launched. For- 
ward, march ! Truly I am better than I thought 
I was, for your success gives me pleasure.” 

This amiable comrade’s words easily dis- 


The Days of My Youth. 159 

sipated the painful feelings that Amedee had 
just experienced. However, it was one of 
those exalted moments when one will not 
admit that evil exists. He spent some time 
with the poets, forcing himself to be more 
gracious and friendly than ever, and left them 
persuaded — the unsuspecting child ! — that he 
had disarmed them by his modesty ; and very 
impatient to share his joy with his friends the 
Gerards, he quickly walked the length of 
Montmartre and reached them just at their 
dinner hour. 

They did not expect him, and only had for 
their dinner the remains of the boiled beef of 
the night before, with some cucumbers. Ame- 
dee carried his cake as usual and, what was 
better still, two saucers that always make the 
poorest meal palatable, hope and happiness. 

They had already read the journals and 
knew that the poem had been applauded at 
the Gaite, and that it had at once been 
printed on the first page of the journal ; and 
they were all so pleased, so glad, that they 
kissed Amedee on both cheeks. Mamma Ge- 
rard remembered that she had a few bottles — 
five or six — of old chambertin in the cellar, 
and you could not have prevented the excel- 
lent woman from at once taking her key and 
taper, and going for those old bottles covered 
with cobwebs and dust, that they might drink 


i6o The Days of My Youth. 

to the health of the triumphant one. As to 
Louise she was radiant, for in several houses 
where she gave lessons she had heard them 
talk of the fine and admirable verses publish- 
ed in the Tapage^ and she was very proud 
to think that the author was a friend of hers. 
What completed AmMee’s pleasure was that 
for the first time Maria seemed to be interest- 
ed in his poem, and said several times to him, 
with such a pretty vain little air : 

“Do you know, your battle is very nice. 
Now then, Amedee, you are going to become 
a great poet, a celebrated man ! What a su- 
perb future you have before you ! ” 

Ah ! what exquisite sweet hopes he carried 
away that evening to his room in Faubourg 
Saint-Jacques. They gave him beautiful 
dreams and still pervaded his thoughts the 
next morning, when the concierge brought 
him two letters. 

Still more happiness ! The first contained 
two notes of a hundred francs each, with Vic- 
tor Gaillard’s card, who congratulated.Amedee 
anew and asked him to write something for 
his journal in the way of prose ; a story, or 
anything he liked. The young poet gave a 
cry of joyful surprise when he recognized the 
handwriting of Maurice Roger upon the other 
envelope. 

“ I have just returned to Paris, my dear Ame- 


The Days of My Youth. 


i6i 


dee,” wrote the traveller, “ and your success 
was my first greeting. I must embrace you 
quickly and tell you how happy I am. Come 
to see me at four o’clock in my ‘den ’ in Rue 
Monsieur-le-Prince. We will dine and pass 
the evening together.” 

Ah ! how the poet loved life that morn- 
ing, how good and sweet it seemed to him! 
Clothed in his best, he gayly descended Rue 
Saint-Jacques, where boxes of asparagus and 
strawberries perfumed the fruit-stalls, and 
went to the Boulevard Saint Michel, where he 
purchased an elegant gray felt hat and a 
pretty necktie. Then he went to the Cafe 
Voltaire, where he lunched. He changed his 
second hundred-franc bill, so that he might 
feel, with the pleasure of a child, the beautiful 
louis d’or which he owed to his work and suc- 
cess. At the office the head clerk — a good 
fellow who sings well at dinners — compli- 
mented Amed^e upon his poem. The young 
man had only made his appearance to ask for 
leave that afternoon, so as to take his manu- 
script to the publisher. 

Once more in the street in the bright May 
sun, after the fashion of nabobs, he took an 
open carriage and was carried to Massif, in 
the Passage des Princes. The editor of the 
Jeunes was seated in his office, which was dec- 
orated with etchings and beautiful bindings. 

II 


i 62 


The Days of My Youth. 


He is well known by his magnificent black 
beard and his large bald head, upon which a 
wicked jester once advised him to paste his 
advertisements ; he publishes the works of 
audacious authors and sensational books, and 
had the honor of sharing with Charles Bazilc, 
the poet, an imprisonment at Sainte-P61agie. 
He received this thin-faced rhymer coldly. 
Amedee introduced himself, and at once there 
was a broad smile, a hand - shake, and a 
connoisseur’s greedy sniffling. Then Massif 
opened the manuscript. 

“ Let us see ! Ah, yes, with margins and 
false titles we can make out two hundred and 
fifty pages.” 

The business was settled quickly. A sheet 
of stamped paper an agreement ! Massif will 
pay all the expenses of the first edition of one 
thousand, and if there is another edition — and 
of course there will be ! — he will give him ten 
cents a copy. Amedee signs without reading. 
All that he asks is that the volume should be 
published without delay. 

“ Rest easy, my dear poet ! you will receive 
the first proofs in three days, and in one 
month it will appear.” 

Was it possible ? Was Amedee not dream- 
ing ? He, poor Violette’s son, the little office 
clerk — his book would be published, and in a 
month I Renders and unknown friends will 


The Days of My Youth,- 


163 


be moved by his agitation, will suffer in his 
suspense ; young people will love him and 
find an echo of their sentiments in his verses ; 
women will dreamily repeat — with one finger 
in his book — some favorite verse that touches 
their heart ! Ah ! he must have a confident 
in his joy, he must tell some true friend. 

Driver, take me to Rue Monsieur-le-Prince.” 

He mounted, four steps at a time, the stairs 
leading to Maurice’s room. The key is in the 
door. He enters and finds the traveller there, 
standing in the midst of the disorder of open 
trunks. 

Maurice ! ” 

AmMee ! ” 

What an embrace ! How long they stood 
hand in hand, looking at each other with hap- 
py smiles ! 

Maurice is more attractive and gracious 
than ever. His beauty is more manly, and his 
golden moustache glistens against his sun- 
browned skin. What a fine fellow ! How lie 
rejoiced at his friend’s first success ! 

“ I am certain that your book will turn 
everybody’s head. I always told you that you 
were a genuine poet. We shall see ! ” 

As to himself, he was happy too. His 
mother had let him off from studying law and 
allowed him to follow his vocation. He was 
going to have a studio and paint. It was all 


164 


The Days of My Youth. 


decided in Italy, where Madame Roger had 
witnessed her son’s enthusiasm over the great 
masters. Ah, Italy ! Italy ! and he began to 
tell of his trip, show knick-knacks and souve- 
nirs of all kinds that littered the room. He 
turned in his hands, that he might show all its 
outlines, a little terra cotta, a reduction of the 
Antinous in the Museum of Naples. He 
opened a box full to bursting of large photo- 
graphs, and passed them to his friend with ex- 
clamations of retrospective admiration. 

“ Look ! the Coliseum ! the ruins of Poes- 
tum — and this antique from the Vatican ! Is 
it not beautiful ? ” 

While looking at the pictures he recalled 
the things that he had seen and the impres- 
sions he had experienced. There was a band 
of collegians in little capes and short trousers 
in their walk ; they wore buckled shoes like the 
abbes of olden times, and nothing could be 
more droll than to see these childish priests 
play leap-frog. There, upon the Riva dei 
Schiavoni, he followed a Venetian. Shabbily 
dressed, and fancy, my friend ! bare-headed, 
in a yellow shawl with ragged green fringe ! 
No ! I do not know whether she was pretty, 
but she possessed in her person all the attrac- 
tions^ of Giorgione’s goddesses and Titian’s 
courtesans combined !” 

Maurice is still the same bad subject. But, 


The Days of My Youth. 165 

bah ! it suits him ; he even boasts of it with 
such a joyous ardor and such a youthful dash, 
that it is only one charm the more in him. 
The clock has struck seven, and they must 
dine. They start off through the Latin quar- 
ter. Maurice gives his arm to Ainedee and 
tells him of his adventures on the other side 
of the Alps. Maurice, once started on this 
subject, could not stop, and while the dinner 
was being served the traveller continued to 
describe his escapades. This kind of conver- 
sation was dangerous for Amedee ; for it must 
not be forgotten that for some time the young 
poet’s innocence had weighed upon him, and 
this evening he had some pieces of gold in his 
pocket that rang a chime of pleasure. While 
Maurice, with his elbow upon the table, told 
him his tales of love, Amedee gazed out upon 
the sidewalk at the women who passed by in 
fresh toilets, in the gas-light which illumin- 
ated tlie fresh green foliage, giving a little nod 
of the head to those whom they knew,. There 
was voluptuousness in the very air, and it was 
Amedee who arose from the table and recalled 
to Maurice that it was Thursday, and there 
was a fete that night at Bullier’s ; and he also 
was the one to add, with a deliberate air : 

“ Shall we take a turn there ? ” 

“Willingly,” replied his gay friend. “Ah, 
ha ! we are then commencing to enjoy our- 


i66 


'The Days of My Youth. 


selves a little, Monsieur Violette ! Go to Bul- 
lier’s ? so be it. I am not sorry to assure my- 
self whether or not I still love the Parisians.” 

They started off smoking their cigarettes. 
Upon the highway, going the same direction 
as themselves, were victorias carrying women 
in spring dresses and wearing bonnets decked 
with flowers. Every few moments the friends 
were elbowed by students shouting popular 
refrains and walking in Indian file. 

Here is Bullier’s ! They step into the blaz- 
ing entrance, and from thence to the stairway 
which leads to the celebrated public ball- 
room. They are stifled by the odor of dust, 
escaping gas, and human flesh. Alas ! there 
are in every village in France doctors in han- 
som cabs, country lawyers, and any quantity 
of justices of the peace, who, I can assure you, 
regret this stench as they take the fresh air in 
the open country under the starry heavens, 
breathing the exquisite perfume of new-mown 
hay ; for this stench is mixed with the little 
poetry that they have had in their lives, 
with their student’s love affairs, and their 
youth. 

All the same, this Bullier’s is a low place, a 
caricature of the Alhambra in pasteboard. 
Three or four thousand moving heads in a 
cloud of tobacco smoke, and an exasperating 
orchestra playing a quadrille in which dan- 


The Days of My Youth. 167 

cers twist and turn, tossing their legs with 
calm faces and obscene gestures. 

“ What a mob ! ” said Amedee, already a 
trifle disgusted. “ Let us go into the garden.” 

They were blinded by the gas there ; the 
thickets looked so much like old scenery that 
one almost expected to see the yellow breast- 
plates of old comic-opera dragoons ; and the 
jet of water recalled one of those little spurts 
of a shooting-gallery upon which an empty 
egg-shell dances. But all the same one can 
breathe there a little. Look up there ! How 
singular it is in such an artificial place ! Yes, 
those are stars ! 

“ Boy ! two sodas,” said Maurice, striking 
the table with his cane ; and the two friends 
sat down near the edge of a walk where the 
crowd passed and repassed. They had been 
there about ten minutes when two women 
stopped before them. 

“ Good - day, Maurice,” said the taller, a 
brunette with rich coloring, the genuine type 
of a tavern girl. 

“ What, Margot ! ” exclaimed the young 
man. “ Will you take something ? Sit down 
a moment, and your friend too. Do you know 
your friend is charming ? What is her name ?” 

“ Rosine,” replied the stranger, modestly, 
for she was only about eighteen, and, in spite 
of the blond frizzes over her eyes, she was not 


i68 


The Days of My Youth. 


yet bold, poor child ! She was making hei 
debut, it was easy to see. 

“ Well, Mademoiselle Rosine, come hero 
that I may see you,” continued Maurice, seat^ 
ing the young girl beside him with a caressing 
gesture. “You, Margot, I authorize to be un- 
faithful to me once more in favor of my friend 
Amedee. He is suffering with love-sickness, 
and has a heart to let. Although he is a poet, 
I think he happens to have in his vest-pocket 
enough to pay for a supper.” 

Everywhere and always the same, the ego- 
tistical and amiable Maurice takes the lion’s 
share, and Amedee, listening only with one 
ear to the large Margot, who is already beg- 
ging him to make an acrostic for her, thinks 
Rosine is charming, while Maurice says a 
thousand foolish things to her. In spite of 
himself, the poet looks upon Maurice as his 
superior, and thinks it perfectly natural that 
he should be adjudged the prettier of the two 
women. No matter ! Amedee wanted to en- 
joy himself too. This Margot, who had just 
taken off her gloves to drink her wine, had 
large, red hands, and seemed as silly as a 
goose, but all the same she was a beautiful 
creature, and the poet commenced to talk to 
her, while she laughed and looked at him with 
a wanton’s eyes. Meanwhile the orchestra 
burst into a polka, and Maurice, in raising his 


The Days of My Youth. 169 

voice to speak to his friend, called him several 
times Amedee, and once only by his family 
name, Violette. Suddenly little Rosine started 
up and looked at the poet, saying with aston- 
ishment, 

“ What ! Is your name Amedee Violette ? ” 

“ Certainly.” 

“ Then you are the one with whom I played 
so much when I was a child.” 

“ With me ? ” 

“ Yes ! Do you not remember Rosine, lit- 
tle Rosine Combarieu, at Madame Gerard’s, 
the engraver’s wife in Rue Notre-Dame-des- 
Champs ? We played games with his little 
girls. How odd it is the way one meets ’ ” 

What is it that Amedee feels ? His entire 
childhood rises up before him. The bitter- 
ness of the thought that he had known this 
poor girl in innocence and youth, and the 
Gerards’ name spoken in such a place filled 
the young man’s heart with a singular sad- 
ness. He could only say to Rosine, in a voice 
that trembled a little with pity, 

“You! Is it you?” 

Then she became red and very embarrassed, 
lowering her eyes. 

Maurice had tact ; he noticed that Rosine 
and Amedee were agitated, and feeling that he 
was de trop, he arose suddenly and said : 

“ Now then, Margot. Come on ! these chil- 


iyo The Days of My Youth. 

dren I think want to talk over their childhood. 
Give up your acrostic my child. Take my 
arm and come and have a turn.” 

When they were alone Amedee gazed at 
Rosine sadly. She was pretty in spite of her 
colorless complexion, a child of the faubourg, 
born with a genius for dress, who could clothe 
herself on nothing — a linen dress, a flower in 
her hat. One who lived on salads and vege- 
tables, so as to buy well - made shoes and 
eighteen-button gloves. 

The pretty blonde looked at Amedee and a 
timid smile shone in her nut-brown eyes. 

“ Now, Monsieur Amedee,” said she, at last, 
“ it need not trouble you to meet the child 
whom you once played with at Bulliers. 
What would have been astonishing would be 
to find that I had become a fine lady. I am 
not wise, it is true, but I work, and you need 
not fear that I go with the first comer. Your 
friend is a handsome fellow, and very amiable, 
and I accepted his attentions because he knew 
Margot, while with you it is very different. It 
gives me pleasure to talk with you. It recalls 
Mamma Gerard who was so kind to me. 
What has become of her, tell me ? and her 
husband and her daughters ? ” 

“ M. Gerard is dead,” replied Amedee ; 
but the ladies are well, and I see them often.” 

“ Do not tell them that you met me here, 


The Days of My Youth. 171 

will you? It is better not. If I liad had a 
good mother like these girls things would 
have turned out differently for me. But, you 
remember, papa was always interested in his 
politics. When I was fifteen years old he ap- 
prenticed me to a florist. He was a fine mas- 
ter, a perfect monster of a man who ruined 
me ! I say, Pere Combarieu has a droll trade 
now ; he is manager of a Republican journal 
— nothing to do — only a few months in prison 
now and then. I am always working in 
flowers, and I have a little friend, a pupil at 
Val-de-Grace, but he has just left as a medi- 
cal officer for Algeria. I was lonely all alone 
and this evening big Margot, whom I got ac- 
quainted with in the store, brought me here to 
amuse myself. But you, what are you doing ? 
Your friend said just now that you were a 
poet. Do you write songs I I always liked 

them. Do you remember when I used to play 
airs with one finger upon the Gerards’ old 
piano ? You were such a pretty little boy 

then, and as gentle as a girl. You still have 
your nice blue eyes, but they are a little 
darker. I remember them. No ! you cannot 
know how glad I am to see you again ! ” 

They continued to chatter, bringing up old 
reminiscences, and when she spoke of the 
Gerard ladies she put on a respectful little air 
which pleased Amedee very much. She was 


172 


The Days of My Youth. 


a poor crazy-headed little thing, he did not 
doubt ; but she had kept at least the poor 
man’s treasure, a simple heart. The young 
man was pleased with her prattling, and as he 
looked at the young girl he thought of the 
past and felt a sort of compassion for her. As 
she was silent for a moment, the poet said to 
her, “ Do you know that you have become 
very pretty ? What a charming complexion 
you have ! such a lovely pallor ! ” 

The grisette, who had known what poverty 
was, gave a bitter little laugh : 

“ Oh, my pallor! that is nothing ! It is not 
the pallor of wealth.” 

Then recovering her good-humor at once, 
she continued : 

“ Tell me. Monsieur Amedee, does this big 
Margot whom you commenced to pay atten- 
tions to a little while ago please you ? ” 

Amedee quickly denied it. “ That immense 
creature? never! Now then, Rosine, I came 
here to amuse myself a little, I will admit it. It 
is not forbidden at my age, is it ? But this ball 
disgusts me. You have no appointment here ? 
No ? Is it truly no ? Very well, take my arm 
and let us go. Do you live far from here ?” 

“ On the Avenue d’Orleans, near the Mont- 
rouge church.” 

“Will you allow me to escort you home, 
then ? ” 


7'Jie Days of My Youth. 


173 


She would be happy to, and they arose and 
left the ball. It seemed to the young poet as 
if the pretty girl’s arm trembled a little in his ; 
but once^pon the boulevard flooded by the 
light from the silvery moon, Rosine slackened 
her steps and became pensive and her eyes 
were lowered when Amedee sought a glance 
from them in the obscurity. How sweet this 
new desire was that troubled the young man’s 
heart ! It was mixed with a little sentiment ; 
his heart beat with emotion, and Rosine was 
not less moved. They could both find only 
insignificant things to say. 

“What a beautiful night ! ” 

“Yes! It does one good to breathe the 
fresh air.” 

They continued their walk without speak- 
ing. Oh ! how fresh and sweet it was under 
these trees ! 

At last they reached the door of Rosine’s 
dwelling. With a slow movement she pressed 
her hand upon the bell button. Then Ame- 
dee with a great effort and in a confused, 
husky voice, asked her if he might go up with 
her and “ see her little room.” 

She looked at him steadily with a tender sad- 
ness in her eyes and then said to him softly : 

“ No, certainly not ! One must be sensible. 
I please you this evening and you know very 
well that I think you are charming. It is true 


174 


The Days of My Youth, 


we knew each other when we were young, 
and now that we have met again, it seems as 
if it would be pleasant to love each other. 
But believe me, we should commi^ a great 
folly, perhaps a wrong. It is better, I assure 
you, to forget that you ever met me at Bul- 
lier’s with big Margot, and only remember 
your little playmate of Rue Notre-Dame-des- 
Champs. It is better than a caprice, it is 
■ something pure that you can keep in youi 
heart. Do not let us spoil the remembrance 
of our childhood. Monsieur Amedee, and let 
us part good friends.” 

Before the young man could find a reply, 
the bell pealed again, and Rosine gave Amedee 
a parting smile, lightly kissing the tips of her 
fingers, and disappeared behind the door which 
fell together with a loud bang. The poet’s first 
movement was one of rage. Giddy weather- 
cock of a woman ! But he had hardly taken 
twenty steps upon the sidewalk before he said 
to himself, with a feeling of remorse, “ She was 
right.” He thought that this poor girl had 
kept in one corner of her heart a shadow of 
reserve and modesty and he was happy to feel 
rise within him a sacred respect for woman ! 

Amedee, my good fellow, you are utterly 
worthless as a man of pleasure. You had 
better give it up ! 


CHAPTER XII. 


For one month now Amedee Violette’s 
poems, entitled Poems from Nature,” had 
embellished with its pale blue covers the 
shelves of the book-stores. The commotion 
raised by the book’s success and the favorable 
criticisms given by the journals had not yet 
calmed down at Cafe de Seville. 

This emotion, let it be understood, did not 
exist except among the literary men. The 
politicians disdained poets and poetry, and did 
not trouble themselves over such common- 
place matters. They had affairs of a great 
deal more importance to determine — the over- 
throw of the government first, then to remodel 
the map of Europe ! What was necessar}’ to 
overthrow the Empire ? First, conspiracy ; 
second, barricades. Nothing was easier than 
to conspire. Everybody conspired at the 
Seville. It is the character of the French, 
who are born cunning, but light and talkative, 
to conspire in public places. As soon as one 
of our compatriots joins a secret society his 
first care is to go to his favorite restaurant 


176 


The Days of My Youth. 


and to confide, under a bond of the most ab- 
solute secrecy, to his most intimate friend, 
what he has known for about five minutes, 
the aim of the conspiracy, names of the actors, 
the day, hour, and place of the rendezvous, 
the pass-words and countersigns. A little 
while after he has thus relieved himself, he is 
surprised that the police interfere and spoil 
an enterprise that has been prepared with so 
much mystery and discretion. It was in this 
way that the beards ” dealt in the dark deeds 
of conspiracy at Cafe de Seville. At the hour 
for absinthe and mazagran there were a certain 
number of Fiesques and Catilines grouped 
around each table. At one of the tables in 
the foreground five old “beards,” whitened 
by political crime, were brewing an infernal 
machine ; and in the back of the room ten 
robust hands had sworn upon the billiard- 
table to arm themselves for regicide ; only as 
with all “ beards ” there were necessarily some 
false ones among them, that is to say, spies. 
All the plots planned at the Seville had mis- 
erably miscarried. 

The art of building barricades was also — 
you would never suspect it ! — very ardently 
and conscientiously studied. This special 
branch of the science of fortification reckoned 
more than one Vauban and Gribeauval among 
its numbers. “ Professor of barricading,” was 


The Days of My Youth. 177 

a title honored at the Cafe de Seville, and one 
that they would willingly have had engraved 
upon their visiting-cards. Observe that the 
instruction was only theoretical ; doubtless 
out of respect for the policeman, they could 
not give entirely practical lessons to the future 
rioters who formed the ground-work of the 
business. The master or doctor of civil war 
could not go out with them, for instance, and 
practice in the Rue Drouot. But he had one 
resource, one way of getting out of it ; name- 
ly, dominoes. No ! you would never believe 
what a revolutionary appearance these in- 
offensive mutton-bones took on under the se- 
ditious hands of the habitues of Cafe de Se- 
ville. These miniature pavements simulated 
upon the marble table the subjugation of the 
most complicated of barricades, with all sorts 
of bastions, redans, and counterscarps. It was 
something after the fashion of the small 
models of war-ships that one sees in marine 
museums. Anyone, not in the secret, would 
have supposed that the “ beards ” simply 
played dominoes. Not at all ! They were 
pursuing a technical course of insurrection. 
When they roared at the top of their lungs 
“ Five on all sides ! ” certain players seemed to 
order a general discharge, and they had a way 
of saying, “ I cannot ! ” which evidently ex- 
pressed a combatant’s despair who has burned 
12 


78 


The Days of My Youth. 


his last cartridge. A “ beard ” in glasses and 
a stove pipe hat, who had been refused in his 
youth at the Ecole Polytechnique, was fright- 
ful in the rapidity and mathematical precis- 
ion with which he added up in three minutes 
his barricade of dominoes. When this man 
“ blocked the six,” you were transported in 
imagination to Rue Transnonain, or to the 
Cloitre Saint-Merry. It was terrible ! 

As to foreign politics, or the remodelling of 
the map of Europe, it was, properly speaking, 
only sport and recreation to the “ beards.” It 
added interest to the game, that was all. Is it 
not agreeable, when you are preparing a dis- 
card, at the decisive moment, with one hun- 
dred at piquet, which gives you quinte or 
quatorze, to deliver unhappy Poland ; and 
when one has the satisfaction to score a king 
and take every trick, what does it cost to let 
the Russians enter Constantinople ? 

Nevertheless, some of the most soleriin 
“ beards ” of the Cafe de Seville attached them- 
selves to international questions, to the great 
problem of European equilibrium. One of 
the most profound of these diplomats — who 
probably had nothing to buy suspenders with, 
for his shirt always hung out between his vest 
and trousers — was persuaded that an indem- 
nity of two million francs would suffice to ob- 
tain from the Pope the transfer of Rome to 


The Days of My Youth. 


179 


the Italians; and another Metteriiich on a 
small scale had for his specialty to offer a se- 
rious affront to England and threaten her, if 
she did not listen to his advice, with a loss in 
a short time of her Indian Empire and other 
colonial possessions. 

Thus the “beards,” absorbed by such grave 
speculations, did not trouble themselves with 
the vanity called literature, and did not care a 
pin for Amedee Violette’s book. Among the 
long-haired ones, however, we repeat, the emo- 
tion was great. They were furious, they were 
agitated and bristled up ; the first enthusiasm 
over Amedee Violette’s verses could not be 
lasting and only had been a mere flash. The 
young man saw these Merovingians as they 
really were toward a man who succeeded, that 
is, severe almost to cruelty. What ! the first edi- 
tion of “ Poems from Nature ” was exhausted 
and Massif had another in press ! What ! the 
Bourgeois, far from being “ astonished ” at this 
book, declared themselves delighted with it, 
bought it, read it, and perhaps had it rebound ! 
They spoke favorably of it in all the Bourgeois 
journals, that is to say, in those that had sub- 
scribers ! Did they not say that Violette, in- 
cited by Jocquelet, was working at a grand 
comedy in verse, and that the Th6atre-Fran- 
9 ais had made very flattering offers to the 
poet? But then if he pleased the Bourgeois 


i8o The Days of My Youth. 

so much he was — oh, horror ! — a Bourgeois 
himself. That was obvious. How blind they 
had been not to see it sooner ! When Ame- 
dee read his verses not long since at Sillery’s, 
by what aberration had they confounded this 
platitude with simplicity, this whining with 
sincere emotion, these stage tricks with art ? 
Ah ! you may rest easy, they will never be 
caught again ! 

As the poets’ tables at the Cafe de Seville 
had been for some time transformed into beds 
of torture upon which Amedee Violette’s poems 
were stretched out and garrotted every day 
from five to seven, the amiable Paul Sillery, 
with a jeering smile upon his lips, tried occa- 
sionally to cry pity for his friend’s verses, given 
up to such ferocious executioners. But these 
literary murderers, ready to destroy a com- 
rade’s book, are more pitiless than the Inquisi- 
tion. There were two inquisitors more relent- 
less than the others ; first, the little scrubby 
fellow who claimed for his share all the 
houris of a Mussulman’s palace ; another, the 
great elegist from the provinces, truly his 
heartaches must have made him gain flesh, 
for the other day he was obliged to let out his 
vest buckle. 

Of course, when Amedee appeared the con- 
versation was immediately changed, and they 
commenced to talk of insignificant things that 


The Days of My Youth, 


i8i 

they had read in the journals ; for example, 
the fire-damp which had killed twenty-five 
working-men in a mine, in a department of the 
North ; or of the shipwreck of a Transatlantic 
steamer in which everything was lost, with one 
hundred and fifty passengers and forty sailors 
— events of no importance, we must admit, if 
one compares them to the recent discovery 
made by the poet inquisitors^of two incorrect 
phrases and five weak rhymes in their com- 
rade’s work. 

Am6dee’s sensitive nature soon remarked 
the secret hostility of which he was the object 
in this group of poets, and he now came to 
the Cafe de Seville only on rare occasions, in 
order to take Paul Sillery by the hand, who in 
spite of his ironical air had always shown him- 
self a good and faithful friend. 

It was there that he recognized one evening 
his classmate at the Lycee, Arthur Papillon, 
seated at one of the political tables. The 
poet wondered to himself how this fine lawyer, 
with his temperate opinions, happened to be 
in the midst of these hot-headed revolutionists 
and what interest in common could unite this 
correct pair of blond whiskers to these un- 
cultivated bushy ones. Papillon, as soon as 
he saw Amedee, took leave of the group with 
whom he was talking and came and offered 
his hearty congratulations to the author of 


1 82 The Days of My Youth. 

Poems from Nature,” leading him out upon 
the boulevard and giving him the key to the 
mystery. 

All the old parties were united against the 
Empire, in view of the coming elections ; Or- 
leanists and Republicans were, for the time 
being, close friends. He, Papillon, had just 
taken his degree, and had attached himself to 
the fortunes of an old wreck of the July gov- 
ernment ; who, after having rested in oblivion 
since 1852, had consented to run as candidate 
for the Liberal opposition in Seine-et-Oise. 
Papillon was flying around like a hen with 
her head cut off to make his companion win 
the day. Fie came to the “Seville” to assure 
himself of the neutral good-will of the unre- 
conciled journalists, and he was full of hope. 

“ Oh ! my dear friend, how difficult it is to 
struggle against an official candidate ! But 
our candidate is an astonishing man. He 
goes about all day upon the railroads in our 
department, unfolding his programme before 
the travelling countrymen and changing com- 
partments at each station. What a stroke of 
genius ! a perambulating public assembly. 
This idea came to him from seeing a harpist 
make the trip from Havre to Honfleur, play- 
ing HI Baccio^ all of the time. Ah ! one must 
look alive ! The prefet does not shrink from 
any way of fighting us. Did he not spread 


The Days of My Youth. 183 

through one of our most catholic cantons the 
report that we were Voltaireans, enemies to 
religion and devourers of priests ? Fortunately 
we have yet four vSundays before us, from now 
until the voting day, and the patron will go to 
high mass and communion in our four most 
important parishes. That will be a response ! 
If such a man is not elected it is hopeless for 
universal suffrage ! ” 

Amedee vras not at that time so disenchanted 
with political matters as he has since become 
and he asked himself with an uneasy feeling 
if this model of candidates, who was perhaps 
going to give himself sacrilegious indigestion, 
and who showed his profession of faith as a 
cutler shows his knives, was not simply a 
stupefying quack. 

Arthur Papillon did not give him time to de- 
vote himself to such unpleasant reflections, 
but said to him, in a frank, protecting tone, 

“ And you, my boy, let us see, where do you 
stand ? You have been very successful, have 
you not ? The other evening at Countess 
Fontaine’s, you know — the widow of one of 
Louis Philippe’s ministers and daughter of Mar- 
shal Lefievre, Jocquelet recited your ‘Sebas- 
topol ’ with enormous success. What a voice 
that Jocquelet has ! We have not his like at 
the Paris bar. Fortunate poet ! I have seen 
your book lying about in the boudoir of more 


184 The Days of My Youth. 

than one handsome lady. Well, I hope that 
you are going to leave the Caf6 de Seville and 
not linger with all of these badly combed fel- 
lows. You must go into society; it is indis- 
pensable to a man of letters, and I will present 
you whenever you wish.” 

For the time being Amed^’s ardor is a lit- 
tle dampened concerning these Bohemians 
with whom he has enjoyed so short a favor, 
and who had also in many ways shocked his 
delicacy. He was not anxious to be called 
“ thou ” by Pere Lebuffle. 

But to go into society ! His education had 
been so modest ! Should he know how to ap- 
pear, how to conduct himself properly ? He 
asked this of Papillon. Our poet is proud, 
he fears ridicule, and would not consent to 
play an inferior role anywhere ; and then his 
success just now was entirely platonic. He 
was still very poor and lived in the Faubourg 
Saint Jacques. Massif ought to pay him in a 
few days five hundred francs for the second 
edition of his book ; but what is a handful of 
napoleons ? 

“ It is enough,” said the advocate, who 
thought of his friend’s dress. “ It is all that is 
necessary to buy nice linen, and a well-cut 
dress-coat, that is the essential thing. Good 
form consists, above all things, in keeping 
silent. With your fine and yielding nature 


The Days of My Youth. 185 

you will become at once a perfect gentleman ; 
better still, you are not a bad looking fellow, 
you have an interesting pallor. I am con- 
vinced that you will please. It is now the 
commencement of July, and Paris is almost 
empty, but Madame la Comtesse Fontaine 
does not go away until the vacations, as she is 
lookingaftcr her little boy who is finishing his 
studies at Lycee Bonaparte. The Countess’s 
drawing-rooms are open every evening until 
the end of the month, and one meets all the 
chic people there who are delayed in Paris, or 
who stop here between two journeys. Ma- 
dame Fontaine is a very amiable and influen- 
tial old lady ; she has a fancy for writers when 
they are good company. Do not be silly, but 
go and order yourself a dress suit. By pre- 
senting you there, my dear fellow, I assure 
you, perhaps in fifteen years, a seat in the 
Academic. It is agreed! Get ready for next 
week.” 

Attention ! Amedee Violette is going to 
make his first appearance in society. 

Although his concierge, who aided him to 
finish his toilet and saw him put on his white 
cravat, had just said to him, “What a love of 
a little husband you would make ! ” the poet’s 
heart beat rapidly when the carriage in which 
he was seated beside Arthur Papillon stopped 
before the steps of an old house in Rue de 


1 86 The Days of My Youth. 

Bellechasse, where Mme. la Comtesse Fontaine 
lived. 

In the vestibule he tried to imitate the ad- 
vocate’s bearing, which was full of authority ; 
but quickly despaired of knowing how to 
swell out his starched shirt-front under the 
severe looks of four tall lackeys in silk stock- 
ings. Amedee was as much embarrassed as if 
he were presented naked before an examining 
board. But they doubtless found him “ good 
for service,” for the door opened into a brightly 
lighted drawing-room into which he followed 
Arthur Papillon, like a frail sloop towed in by 
an imposing three-master, and behold the 
timid Amedee presented in due form to the 
mistress of the house. She was a lady of 
elephantine proportions, in her sixtieth year, 
and wore a white camelia stuck in her rose- 
wood-colored hair. Her face and arms were 
plastered with enough flour to make a plate of 
apple-fritters ; but, for all that, she had a 
grand air and superb eyes whose commanding 
glance was corrected by such a kindly smile 
that Am6dee was a trifle reassured. 

She had much applauded M. Violette’s 
beautiful verse, so she said, that Jocquelet had 
recited at her house on the last Thursday of 
her season ; and she had just read with the 
greatest pleasure his “ Poems from Nature.” 
She thanks M. Papillon — who bows his head 


The Days of My Youth. 


187 


and lets his monocle fall — for having brought 
M. Violette. She was charmed to make his 
acquaintance. 

Amedee was very much embarrassed to 
know what to reply to this commonplace com- 
pliment which was paid so gracefully. For- 
tunately he was spared this duty by the arri- 
val of a very much dressed, tall, bony woman, 
toward whom the countess darted off with 
astonishing vivacity, exclaiming joyfully : Ma- 
dame la Marechale ! and Amedee, still fol- 
lowing in the wake of his comrade, sailed 
along toward the, corner of the drawing-room, 
and then cast anchor before a whole flotilla of 
black coats. Amedee’s spirits began to revive 
and he examined the place, so entirely new to 
him, where his growing reputation had ad- 
mitted him. 

It was an immense drawing-room after the 
First Empire style, hung and furnished in 
yellow satin, whose high white panels were 
decorated with trophies of antique weapons 
carved in wood and gilded. A dauber from 
the Ecole des Beaux-Arts would have branded 
with the epithet “ sham '' the armchairs and 
sofas ornamented with sphinx heads in bronze, 
as well as the massive green marble clock 
upon which stood, all in gold, a favorite court 
personage, clothed in a cap, sword, and fig- 
leaf, who seemed to be making love to a 


i88 


The Days of My Youth. 


young person in a floating tunic, with her hair 
dressed exactly like the Empress Josephine. 
But the dauber would have been wrong, for 
this massive splendor was wanting neither in 
grandeur nor character. Two pictures only 
lighted up the cold walls ; one, signed by 
Gros, was an equestrian portrait of the Mar- 
shal, Madame Fontaine’s father, the old drum- 
mer of pont de Lodi, one of the bravest of 
Napoleon’s lieutenants. He was represented 
in full-dress uniform with an enormous black- 
plumed hat, brandishing his blue velvet baton, 
sprinkled with golden bees, and underneath 
the rearing horse’s legs one could see in the 
dim distance a grand battle in the snow, and 
mouths of burning cannons. The other pict- 
ure, placed upon an easel and lighted by a 
lamp with a reflector, was one of Ingre’schef- 
d’oeuvres. It was the portrait of the mistress 
of the house at the age of eighteen, a portrait 
of which the countess was now but an old and 
horrible caricature. 

Arthur Papillon talked in a low voice with 
Am^dee, explaining to him how Madame 
Fontaine’s drawing-room was neutral ground, 
open to people of all parties. As daughter of 
a Marshal of the First Empire, the countess 
preserved the highest regard for the people 
at the Tuileries, although she was the widow 
of Count Fontaine, who was one of the brood 


The Days of My Youth, 


189 


of Royer-Collard’s conservatives, a parliamen- 
tarian ennobled by Louis-Philippe, twice a 
colleague of Guizot on the ministerial bench, 
who died of spite and suppressed ambition 
after ’48 and the coup d'jEtai. Besides, the 
countess’s brother, the Duke d’Eylau, married 
in 1829 one of the greatest heiresses in the 
Faubourg Saint-Germain ; for his father, the 
Marshal, whose character did not equal his 
bravery, attached himself to every govern- 
ment, had carried his candle in the proces- 
sions on Corpus Christ! day under Charles 
X., and had ended by being manager of the 
Invalides at the beginning of the July mon- 
archy. Thanks to this fortunate combination 
of circumstances, one met several great lords, 
many Orleanists, a certain number of official 
persons, and even some republicans of high 
rank, in this liberal drawing-room, where the 
countess, who was an admirable hostess, knew 
how to attract learned men, writers, artists, 
and celebrities of all kinds, as well as young 
and pretty women. As the season was late, 
there was not a large gathering this evening. 
However, neglecting the unimportant gentle- 
men whose ancestors had perhaps been fabri- 
cated by Pere Issacar, Papillon pointed out 
to his friend a few celebrities. One, with the 
badge of the Legion of Honor upon his coat, 
which looked as if it had come from the stall 


190 


The Days of My Youth. 


of an old-clothes man, was Forge rol, the great 
geologist, the most grasping of scientific men; 
Forgerol, rich from his twenty fat sinecures, 
and for whom one of his confreres composed 
this epitaph in advance: “ Here lies Forgerol, 
in the only place he did not solicit.” 

That grand old man, with the venerable 
shaky head, whose white silky hair seemed to 
shed blessings and benedictions, was M. Dus- 
sant du Fosse, a philanthropist by profession, 
honorary president of all charitable works ; 
Senator, of course, since he was one of 
France’s peers, and w’ho in a few years after 
the Prussians had left, and the battles were 
over, would sink into suspicious affairs and 
end in the police courts. 

That old statesman, whose rough, gray hairs 
were like brushes for removing cobwebs, a 
pedant from head to foot, leaning in his fav- 
orite attitude against the mantel decorated 
only with flowers, by his mulish obstinacy 
contributed much to the fall of the last mon- 
archy. He was respectfully listened to and 
called “dear master” by a republican orator, 
whose red-hot convictions began to ooze away, 
and who, soon after, as minister of the liberal 
empire did his best to hasten the government’s 
downfall. 

Although Amedee was of an age to respect 
these notabilities, whom Papillon pointed out 


The Days of My Youth. 


191 

to him with so much deference, they did not 
impress him as much as certain visitors who 
belonged to the world of art and letters. In 
considering them the young man was much 
surprised and a little saddened at the want of 
harmony that he discovered between the ap- 
pearance of the men and the nature of their 
talents. The poet Leroy des Saules, had the 
haughty attitude and the Apollo face corre- 
sponding to the noble and perfect beauty of 
his verses ; but Edouard Durocher, the fash- 
ionable painter of the nineteenth century, was 
a large, common-looking man with huge mus- 
tache, like a book agent’s ; and Theophile de 
Sonis, the elegant story-writer, the worldly ro- 
mancer, had a copper-colored nose, and his 
harsh beard was like that of a chief in a cus- 
tom-house. 

What attracted Amedee’s attention, above 
all things, were the women — the fashionable 
women that he saw close by for the first time. 
Some of them were old, and horrified him. 
The jewels with which they were loaded made 
their fatigued looks, dark-ringed eyes, heavy 
profiles, thick flabby lips, like a dromedary’s, 
still more distressing ; and with their bare 
necks and arms — it was etiquette at Madame 
Fontaine’s receptions — which allowed one to 
see through filmy lace their flabby flesh and 
bony skeletons, they were as ridiculous as an 


192 


The Days of My Youth. 


elegant cloak would be upon an old crone. 
As he saw these decrepit, painted creatures, 
the young man felt the respect that he should 
have for the old leave him. • He would only 
look at the young and beautiful women, those 
with beautiful figures and triumphant smiles 
upon their lips, floAvers in their hair, and dia- 
monds upon their necks. All this bare flesh 
intimidated Amedee ; for he had been brought 
up so privately and strictly that he was dis- 
tressed enough to lower his eyes at the sight 
of so many arms, necks, and shoulders. He 
thought of Maria Gerard as she looked the 
other day, when he met her going to work in 
the Louvre, so pretty in her short high-necked 
dress, her magnificent hair flying out from 
her close bonnet, and her box of pastels in her 
hand. How much more he preferred this 
simple rose concealed among thorns, to all of 
these too full-blown peonies ! 

Soon the enormous and amiable countess 
came to the poet and begged him, to his great 
confusion, to recite a few verses. He was 
forced to do it. It was his turn to lean upon 
the mantel. Fortunately it was a success for 
him ; all the full-blown peonies, who did not 
understand much of his poetry, thought him a 
handsome man, with his blue eyes and their 
ardent melancholy glance ; and they applaud- 
ed him as much as they could without burst- 


The Days of My Youth. 


193 


ing their very tight gloves. They surrounded 
him and complimented him. Madame Fon- 
taine presented him to the poet Leroy des 
Saules, who congratulated him with the right 
word, and invited him with a paternal air to 
come and see him. It would have been a very 
happy moment for Amedee, if one of the old 
maids, with camel’s lips, whose stockings were 
probably as blue as her eyelids, had not mo- 
nopolized him for a quarter of an hour, putting 
him through a sort of an examination on con- 
temporary poets. At last the poet retired, 
after receiving a cup of tea and an invitation 
to dinner for the next Tuesday. Then he was 
once more seated in the carriage with Arthur 
Papillon, who gave him a slap on the thigh, 
exclaiming joyfully, 

“ Well, you are launched ! ” 

It was true ; he was launched, and he will 
wear out more than one dress suit before he 
learns all that this action “going into society,” 
which seems nothing at all at first, and which 
really is nothing, implies to an industrious 
man and artist, of useless activity and lost 
time. He is launched ! He has made a suc- 
cessful debut ! A dinner in the city ! At 
Madame Fontaine’s dinner on the next Tues- 
day, some abominable wine and aged salmon 
was served to Amedee by a butler named 
Adolphe, who ought rather to have been 


T94 


The Days of My Youth, 


called Exili or Castaing, and who, after fifteen 
years service to the countess, already owned 
two good paying houses in Paris. At the 
present moment all goes well, for Amedee 
has a good healthy stomach and could digest 
buttons from a uniform, but when all the Bor- 
gias, in black-silk stockings and white-silk 
gloves, who wish to become house-owners, 
have cooked their favorite dishes for him, and 
have practised only half a dozen winters, two 
or three times a week upon him, we shall know 
more as to his digestion. Still that dinner 
was enjoyable. Commencing with the suspi- 
cious salmon, the statesman with the brush- 
broom head, the one who had overthrown 
Louis-Philippe without suspecting it, com- 
menced a talk to explain how, if they had lis- 
tened to his advice, this constitutional king’s 
dynasty would yet be upon the throne ; and at 
the moment when the wretched butler poured 
out his most poisonous wine, the old lady who 
looked like a dromedary with rings in its ears, 
made Amedee — her unfortunate neighbor — 
undergo a new oral examination upon the 
poets of the nineteenth century, and asked 
him what he thought of Lamartine’s clamor- 
ous debts, and Victor Hugo’s foolish pride, 
and Alfred de Musset’s intemperate habits. 

The worthy Amedee is launched ! He will 
go and pay visits of indigestion ; appear one 


The Days of My Youth, 


195 


day at Madame such a one’s, and at several 
other “ Madames.” At first he will stay there 
a half-hour, the simpleton ! until he sees that 
the cunning ones only come in and go out 
exactly as one does in a booth at a fair. He 
will see pass before him — but tliis time in cor- 
sages of velvet or satin — all the necks and 
shoulders of his acquaintances, those that he 
turned away from with disgust and those that 
made him blush. Each Madame this one, en- 
tering Madame that one’s house, will seat her- 
self upon the edge of a chair, and will always 
say the same inevitable thing, the only thing 
that can be or should be said that day ; for 
example, “ So the poor General is dead ! ” or, 
“ Have you heard the new piece at the Fran- 
pais ? It is not very strong, but it is well 
played ! ” “ This will be delicious ; ” and 
Amedee will admire, above all things, Ma- 
dame this one’s play of countenance, when 

Madame G tells her that Madame B ’s 

daughter is to marry Madame C ’s nephew. 

While she scarcely knows these people, she 
will manifest as lively a joy as if they had an- 
nounced the death of an old aunt, whose 
money she is waiting for to renew the furni- 
ture in her house. And, on the contrary, 

when Madame D announces that Madame 

E ’s little son has the whooping-cough, at 

once, without transition, by a . change, of cx- 


196 


The Days of My Youth. 


pression that would make the fortune of an 
actress, the lady of the house puts on an air 
of consternation, as if the cholera had broken 
out the night before in the Halles quarter. 

Amedee is launched, I repeat it. He is still 
a little green and will become the dupe, for a 
long time, of all the shams, grimaces, acting, 
and false smiles, which cover so many artifi- 
cial teeth. At first sight all is elegance, har- 
mony, and delicacy. Since Amedee does not 
know that the Princess Krazinska’s celebrated 
head of hair was cut from the heads of the 
Breton girls, how could he suspect that the 
austere defender of the clergy, M. Lemarguil- 
lier, had been gravely compromised in a love 
affair, and had thrown himself at the feet of 
the prefet de police, exclaiming, “ Do not 
ruin me ! ” When the king of society is an- 
nounced, the young Duke de la Tour-Prends- 
Garde, whose one ancestor was at the battle 
of the bridge, and who is just now introducing 
a new pantaloon, Amedee could not suspect 
that the favorite amusement of this fashiona- 
ble rake consisted in drinking in the morning, 
upon an empty stomach, with his coachman, 
at a grog-shop on the corner. When the 
pretty Baroness des Nenuphars blushed up 
to her ears because someone spoke the word 
tea-spoon ” before her, and she considered it 
to be an unwarrantable indelicacy — nobody 


The Days of My Youth, 


197 


knows why — it is assuredly not our young 
friend who will suspect that, in order to pay 
the gambling debts of her third lover, this 
modest person had just sold secretly her fam- 
ily jewels. 

Rest assured Amedee will lose all these il- 
lusions in time. The day will come when he 
will not take in earnest this grand comedy in 
white ties. He will not have the bad taste to 
show his indignation. No ! he will pity these 
unfortunate society people condemned to hy- 
pocrisy and falsehood. He will even excuse 
their whims and vices as he thinks of the 
frightful ennui that overwhelms them. Yes, 
he will understand how the unhappy Duke de 
la Tour-Prends-Garde, who is condemned to 
hear “ La Favorita” seventeen times during the 
winter, may feel at times the need of a violent 
distraction, and go to drink white wine with 
his servant. Amedee will be full of indul- 
gence, only one must pardon him for his 
plebeian heart and native uncouthness ; for at 
the moment when he shall have fathomed the 
emptiness and vanity of this worldly farce, he 
will keep all of his sympathy for those who 
retain something like nature. He will esteem 
infinitely more the poorest of the workmen — 
a wood-sawyer or a bell-hanger — than a poli- 
tician haranguing from the mantel, or an old 
literary dame who sparkles like a window in 


198 


The Days of My Youth, 


the Palais-Royal, and is tattooed like a Carib- 
bean ; he will prefer an old wrinkled village 
granddame in her white cap, who still hoes, 
although sixty years old, her little field of 
potatoes. 


r 


CHAPTER XIII. 

A LITTLE more than a year has passed. It 
is now the first days of October ; and when the 
morning mist is dissipated, the sky is such a 
limpid blue and the air so pure and fresh, that 
Amedee Violette is almost tempted to make 
a paper kite and fly it over the fortifications, 
as he did in his youth. But the age for that 
has passed ; Amedee’s real kite is more fragile 
than if it was made of sticks and pieces of 
old paper pasted on one over the other ; it 
does not ascend very high yet, and the thread 
that sails it is not very strong. Amedee’s kite 
is his growing reputation. He must work to 
sustain it ; and always with the secret hope of 
making little Maria his wife. Amedee works. 
He is not so poor now, since he earns at the 
ministry two hundred francs a month, and 
from time to time publishes a prose story in 
journals where his copy is paid for. He has 
also left his garret in the Faubourg Saint- 
Jacques and lives on Saint Louis Island, in 
one room only, but large and bright, from 
whose window he can see, as he leans out, the 


200 


The Days of My Youth. 


coming and going of boats on the fiver and 
the sun as it sets behind Notre-Dame. 

Amed^e has been working mostly upon his 
drama for the Comedie-Frangaise this sum- 
mer, and it is nearly done ; it is a modern 
drama in verse, entitled “ L'Atelier.'’ The 
action is very simple, like that of a tragedy, 
but he believes it is sympathetic and touch- 
ing, and it ends in a popular way. Amedee 
thinks he has used for his dialogue, familiar 
but nevertheless poetical lines, in which he 
has not feared to put in certain graphic words 
and energetic speeches from the mouths of 
working-people. 

The grateful poet has destined the principal 
role for Jocquelet, who has made a successful 
debut in the “Fourberies de Scapin,” and 
who, since then, has won success after success. 
Jocquelet, like all comic actors, aspires to play 
also in drama ; and who can do so in reality, 
but under particular conditions ; for in spite of 
his grotesque nose, he has strong and spirited 
qualities, and recites verses very well. He is 
to represent an old mechanic, in his friend’s 
work, a sort of faubourg Nestor, and this type 
can accommodate itself very well to the not 
very aristocratic face of Jocquelet, who more 
and more proves his cleverness at “ making- 
up.” However, at first the actor was not satis- 
fied with his part. He fondles the not well 


The Days of My Youth. 


201 


defined dream of all actors, he wishes like all 
the others the “ leading part.” They do not 
exactly know what they mean by it, but in 
their dreams is vaguely visible a wonderful 
Almanzor, who makes his first entrance in an 
open barouche drawn by four horses har- 
nessed a la Daumont, and who descends from 
it dressed in tight-fitting gray clothes, tasselled 
boots, and decorations. This personage is as 
attractive as Don Juan, brave as Murat, a poet 
like Shakespeare, and as charitable as Saint 
Vincent de Paul. He should have, before the 
end of the first act, crushed with love by one 
single glance, the young leading actress ; dis- 
persed a dozen assassins with his sword ; ad- 
dressed to the stars — that is to say, the spec- 
tators in the upper gallery — a long speech of 
from eighty or a hundred lines, and gathered 
up two lost children under the folds of his 
cloak. 

A “ fine leading part ” ought also, during the 
rest of the piece, to accomplish a certain num- 
ber of sublime acts, address the multitude 
from the top of a staircase, insult a powerful 
monarch to his face, dash into the midst of 
a conflagration — always in the long topped 
boots. The ideal part would be for him to 
successively discover America, like Christo- 
pher Columbus ; win pitched battles like 
Bonaparte, or some other equally senseless 


202 


The Days of My Youth, 


thing ; but the essential point is, never to 
leave the stage and talk all of the time — the 
work, in reality, should be a monologue in five 
acts. 

This role of an old workman, offered to Joc- 
quelet by Amedee, obtained only agrimace of 
displeasure from the actor. However, it ended 
by his being reconciled to the part, studying 
it, and, to use his own expression, “ racking 
his brains over it,” until one day he ran to Vio- 
lette’s, all excited, exclaiming : 

“ I have the right idea of my old man now ! 
I will dress him in a tricot waistcoat with 
ragged sleeves and dirty blue overalls. He is 
an apprentice, is he not ? A fellow with a 
beard ! Very well ! in the great scene where 
they tell him that his son is a thief and he de- 
fies the whole of the workmen, he struggles 
and his clothes are torn open, showing a hairy 
cliest. I am not hairy, but I will make my- 
self so — does that fill the bill ? You will see 
the effect.” 

While reserving the right to dissuade Joc- 
quelet from making himself up in this way, 
Amedee carried his manuscript to the director 
of the Theatre Fran9ais, who asked a little 
time to look it over, and also promised the 
young poet that he would read it aloud to the 
committee. 

Amedee is very anxious, although Maurice 


- 


The Days of My Youth. 203 

Roger, to whom he has read the piece act by- 
act, predicts an enthusiastic acceptance. 

The handsome Maurice has been installed 
for more than a year in a studio on Rue d’As- 
sas and leads a jolly, free life there. Does 
he work ? Sometimes ; by fits and starts. 
And although he abandons his sketches at the 
first attack of idleness, there is a charm about 
these sketches, suspended upon the wall ; and 
he will some day show his talent. One of his 
greatest pleasures is to see pass before him all 
his beautiful models, at ten francs an hour. 
With palette in hand, he talks with the young 
women, tells them amusing stories, and makes 
them relate all their love affairs. When friends 
come to see him, they can always see a model 
just disappearing behind a curtain. Amedee 
prefers to visit his friend on Sunday afternoons, 
and thus avoid meeting these models ; and 
then, too, he meets there on that day Arthur 
Papillon, who paves the way for his political 
career by pleading lawsuits for the press. 
Although he is, at heart, only a very moderate 
liberalist, this young man, with the very stylish 
side whiskers, defends the most republican of 
“beards,” if it can be called defending; for in 
spite of his fine oratorical efforts, his clients 
are regularly favored with the maximum of 
the punishment. But they are delighted with 
it, for the title of “ political convict ” is one 


204 


The Days of My Youth. 


very much in demand among the irreconcil- 
ables. They are all convinced that the time 
is near when they are going to overthrow the 
Empire, without suspecting, alas ! that in order 
to do that twelve hundred thousand German 
bayonets will be necessary. The next day af- 
ter the triumph, the month of imprisonment 
will be taken into account, and Sainte-Pelagie 
is not the carcereduro. Papillon is cunning and 
wishes to have a finger in every pie, so he goes 
to dine once a week with those who owe their 
sojourn in this easy-going jail to him, and car- 
ries them regularly a lobster. 

Paul Sillery, who has also made Maurice’s 
acquaintance, loiters in this studio. The ami- 
able Bohemian has not yet paid his bill to 
P4re Lebuffle, but he has cut his red fleece 
close to his head, and publishes every Sunday, 
in the journals, news full of grace and humor. 
Of course they will never pardon him at the 
Caf^ de Seville ; the “ long-haired ” ones have 
disowned this traitor who has gone over to the 
enemy, and is now only a sickening and fetid 
bourgeois ; and if the poetical club were able 
to enforce its decrees, Paul Sillery, like an 
apostate Jew in the times of the Inquisition, 
would have been scourged and burned alive. 
Paul Sillery does not trouble himself about 
it, however ; and from time to time returns to 
the “Seville” and treats its members to a 


The Days of My Youth. 


* 205 


bumper all around, which he pays for with the 
gold of his dishonor. Sometimes Jocquelet 
appears, with his smooth-shaved face ; but 
only rarely, for he is at present a very busy 
man and already celebrated. His audacious 
nose is reproduced in all positions and dis- 
played in photographers’ windows, where he 
has for neighbors the negatives most in de- 
mand ; for instance, the fatherly and benevo- 
lent face of the pope, Pius IX., or the inter- 
national limbs of Mile. Ketty, the majestic 
fairy, in tights. The journals, which print 
Jocquelet’s name, treat him sympathetically 
and conspicuously, and arc full of his praises. 
“He is good to his old aunt,” “gives alms,” 
“ picked up a lost dog in the streets the other 
evening.” An artist such as he, who stamps 
immortality on all the comic repertory, and 
takes Moliere under his wing, has no time to 
go to visit friends, that is understood. How- 
ever, he still honors Maurice Roger with short 
visits. He only has time to make all the 
knick-knacks and china on the side-board 
tremble with the noise of his terrible voice ; 
only time to tell how, on the night before, in 
the green-room, when still clothed in Scapin’s 
striped cloak, he deigned to receive with the 
coldest dignity the compliments of a Royal 
Highness, or some other person of high rank. 
A prominent society lady has been dying of 


2o6 


The Days of My Youth. 


love for him the past six months ; she occu- 
pies ‘‘stage box 6” — and then off he goes. 
Good riddance ! 

Amddee enjoys himself in his friend’s stu- 
dio, where gay and witty artists come to talk. 
Tliey laugh and amuse themselves, and this 
Sunday resting-place is the most agreeable of 
the hard-working poet’s recreations. Amedee 
prolongs them as long as possible, until at last 
he is alone with his friend ; then the young 
men stretch themselves out upon the Turkish 
cushions and they talk freely of their hopes, 
ambitions, and dreams for the future. 

Amedee, however, keeps one secret to him- 
self ; he has never told of his love for Maria 
Gerard. Upon his return from Italy the 
traveller inquired several times for these la- 
dies, sympathized politely with their misfor- 
tune, and wished to be remembered to them 
through Amedee. The latter had been very 
reserved in his replies, and Maurice no longer 
broaches the subject in their conversation. Is 
it through neglect ? After all, he hardly knew 
these ladies ; still, Amedee is not sorry to talk 
of them no longer with his friend, and it is 
never without a little embarrassment and un- 
acknowledged jealousy that he replies to Ma- 
ria when she asks for news of Maurice. 

She no longer inquires. The pretty Maria 
is cross and melancholy, for now they only 


The Days of My Youth, 207 

talk of one thing at the Gerards ; it is always 
the same, the vulgar and cruel thought of liv- 
ing ; and within a short time they have de- 
scended a few steps lower on the slippery 
ladder of poverty. It is not possible to earn 
enough to feed three mouths with a piano 
method and a box of pastels — or, at least, it 
does not hold out. Louise has fewer pupils, 
and Pere Issacar has lessened his orders. 
Mamma Gerard, who has become almost an 
old woman, redoubles her efforts ; but they 
can no longer make both ends meet. Amedee 
sees it, and how it makes him suffer ! 

The poor women are proud, and complain 
as little as possible ; but the decay inside this 
house, already so modest, is manifested in 
many ways. Two beautiful engravings, the 
last of their father’s souvenirs, had been sold 
in an hour of extreme want ; and one could 
see, by the clean spots upon the wall, where 
the frames once hung. Madame Gerard’s 
and her daughters’ mourning seemed to grow 
rusty, and at the Sunday dinner Amedee now 
brings, instead of a cake, a pastry pie, which 
sometimes constitutes the entire meal. There 
is only one bottle of old wine in the cellar, 
and they drink wdne by the pot from the 
grocers. Each new detail that proves his 
friends’ distress troubles the sensitive Amedee. 
Once, having earned ten louis from some 


2o8 


The Days of My Youth. 


literary work, he took the poor mother aside 
and forced her to accept one hundred francs. 
The unfortunate woman, trembling with emo- 
tion, while two large tears rolled down her 
cheeks, admitted that the night before, in 
order to pay the washerwoman, they had 
pawned the only clock in the liouse. 

What can he do to assist them, to help them 
to lead a less terrible life ? Ah ! if Maria 
would have it so, they could be married at 
once, without any other expense than the 
white dress, as other poor people do ; and they 
would all live together. He has his salary of 
twenty-four hundred francs, besides a thou- 
sand francs that he has earned in other ways. 
With Louise’s lessons this little income vrould 
be almost sufficient. Then he would exert 
himself to sell his writings ; he would work 
hard, and they could manage. Of course it 
would be quite an undertaking on his part to 
take all this family under his charge. Children 
might be born to them. Had he not com- 
menced to gain a reputation ; had he not a 
future before him > His piece might be 
played and meet with success. This would be 
their salvation. Oh, the happy life that the 
four would lead together ! Yes, if Maria could 
love him a little, if he persisted in hoping, if 
she had the courage, it was the only step to 
take. 


A 


The Days of My Youth. 


209 


Becoming enthusiastic upon this subject, 
Amedee decided to submit the question to the 
excellent Louise, in whom he had perfect 
confidence, and considered to be goodness 
and truth personified. Every Thursday, at six 
o’clock, she left a boarding-school in the Rue 
de la Rochechouart, where she gave lessons to 
young ladies in singing. He would go and 
wait for her as she came out that very evening. 
And there he met her. Poor Louise ! her 
dress was lamentable ; and what a sad counte- 
nance ! What a tired, distressed look ! 

“ What, you Amedee ! ” said she, with a 
happy smile, as he met her. * 

“Yes, my dear Louise. Take my arm and 
let me accompany you part of the way. We 
will talk as we walk, I have something very 
serious to say to you, confidentially, important 
advice to ask of you.” 

The poet then commenced to make his con- 
fession. He recalled their childhood days in 
the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, when they 
played together ; it was as long ago as that, 
that he first commenced to be charmed by 
little Maria. As soon as he became a young 
man he felt that he loved the dear child, and 
had always cherished the hope that he might 
inspire her with a tender sentiment and mar- 
ry her some day. If he had not spoken sooner 
it was because he was too poor, but he had 
14 


210 


The Days of My Youth. 


always loved her, he loved her now, and never 
should love any other woman. He then ex- 
plained his plan of life in simple and touching 
terms ; he would become Madame Gerard’s 
son and his dear Louise’s brother ; the union 
of their two poverties would become almost 
comfort. Was it not very simple and reason- 
able ? He was very sure that she would ap- 
prove of it, for she was wisdom itself and the 
head of the family.' 

While he was talking Louise lowered her 
eyes and looked at her feet. He did not feel 
that she was trembling violently. Blind, 
blind Amedee ! You do not see, you will 
never see, that she is the one who loves you ! 
Without hope ! she knows that very well ; she 
is older than you, she is not pretty, and she 
will always be in your eyes an adopted elder 
sister, who once showed you your alphabet 
letters with the point of her knitting-needle. 
She has suspected for a long time your love 
for Maria ; she suffers, but she is resigned 
to it, and she will help you, the brave girl ! 
But this confession that you make, Maria’s 
name that you murmur into her ear in such 
loving accents, this dream of happiness in 
which, in your artless egotism, you reserve for 
her the role of an old maid who will bring up 
your children, is cruel, oh ! how cruel ! They 
have reached the Boulevard Pigalle ; the sun 


The Days of My Youth. 


21 r 


has set, tlie sky is clear and bright as a tur- 
quoise, and the sharp autumn wind detaches 
the last of the dried leaves from the trees. 
Am^dee is silent, but his anxious glance so- 
licits and waits for Louise’s reply. 

“ Dear Amedee,” said she, raising her frank, 
pure eyes to his face, “ you have the most 
generous and best of hearts. I suspected that 
you loved Maria, and I would be glad to tell 
you at once that she loves you, so that we 
might hereafter be but one family — but frank- 
ly I cannot. Although the dear child may be 
a little frivolous, her woman’s instinct must 
suspect your feeling for her, but she has never 
spoken of it to Mamma or to me. Have con- 
fidence ; I do not see anything that augurs ill 
for you in that. She is so young and so 
innocent that she might love you without sus- 
pecting it herself. It is very possible, prob- 
able even, that your avowal will enlighten 
her as to the state of her own heart. She will 
be touched by your love, I am sure, as well as 
by your devotion to the whole family. I hope, 
with all my heart, Amedee, that you will 
succeed ; for, I can say it to you, there must 
some pleasure happen in poor Maria’s life 
soon. She has moments of the deepest sadness 
and attacks of weeping that have made me un- 
easy for some time. You must have noticed, 
too, that she is overwhelmed with ennui. I 


2 1 2 The Days of My Youth. 

can see that she suffers more than Mamma or 
I do, at the hard life that we lead. It is not 
strange that she feels as she does, for she 
is pretty and attractive, and made for happi- 
ness ; and to see the present and future so 
gloomy! How sad it is! You can understand, 
my friend, how much I desire this marriage to 
take place. You are so good and noble, you 
will make Maria happy ; but you have said it, 
I am the one who represents wisdom in our 
house* Let me have then a few days in which 
to observe Maria, to obtain her confidence, to 
discover perhaps a sentiment in her heart of 
which she is ignorant ; and remember that you 
have a sure and faithful ally in me.” 

“ Take your own time, dear Louise,” re- 
plied the poet. “ I leave everything to you. 
Whatever you do will be for the best.” 

He thanked her and they parted at the foot 
of Rue Lepic. It was a bitter pleasure for the 
slighted one to give the young man her poor 
deformed pianist’s hand, and to feel that he 
pressed it with hope and gratitude. 

She wanted and must urge this marriage. 
She said this over and over again to herself, 
as she walked up the steep street, where 
crowds of people were swarming at the end of 
their day’s work. No! no! Maria did not 
care for Amed 6 e. Louise was very sure of it ; 
but at all events it was necessary that she 


The Days of My Youth. 2 1 3 

should try to snatch her young sister from the 
discouragements and bad counsel of poverty. 
Amedee loved her and would know how to 
make her love him. In order to assure their 
happiness these two young people must be 
united. As to herself, what matter ! If they 
had children she would accept in advance lier 
duties as coddling aunt and old god-mother. 
Provided, of course, that Maria would be 
guided, or, at least, that she would consent. 
She was so pretty that she was a trifle vain. 
She was nourishing perhaps, nobody knew 
what fancy or vain hope, based upon her 
beauty •and youth. Louise had grave fears. 
The poor girl, with her thin, bent shoulders 
wrapped up in an old black shawl, had already 
forgotten her own grief and only thought of 
the happiness of others, as she slowly dragged 
herself up Montmartre Hill. When she reached 
the butcher’s shop in front of the mayor’s 
office, she remembered a request of her mo- 
ther’s ; and as is always the case with the 
poor,/a trivial detail is mixed with the drama of 
life. Louise, without forgetting her thoughts, 
while sacrificing her own heart, went into the 
shop and picked out two breaded cutlets, and 
had them done up in brown paper, for their 
evening’s repast. 

The day after his conversation with Louise, 
Amedee felt that distressing impatience that 


214 


The Days of My Youth. 


waiting causes nervous people. The day at 
the office seemed unending, and in order to 
escape solitude, at five o’clock he went to 
Maurice’s studio, where he had not been for 
fifteen days. He found him alone and the 
young artist also seemed preoccupied. While 
Amedee congratulated him upon a study 
placed upon an easel, Maurice walked up and 
down the room with his hands in his pocket, 
and eyes upon the floor, making no reply to his 
friend’s compliments. Suddenly he stopped 
and looking at Amedee said : 

“ Have you seen the Gerard ladies during 
the past few days ? ” • 

Maurice had not spoken of these ladies for 
several months, and the poet was a trifle sur- 
prised. 

“ Yes,” he replied. Not later than yester- 
day I met Mademoiselle Louise.” 

“ And,” replied Maurice, in a hesitating 
manner, “were all the family well ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ Ah ! ” said the artist in a strange voice, 
and he resumed his silent promenade. 

Amedee always had a slightly unpleasant 
sensation when Maurice spoke the name of 
the Gerards, but this time the suspicious look 
and singular tone of the young painter, as he 
inquired about them, made the poet feel 
genuinely uneasy. He was impressed, above 


The Days of My Youth, 215 

all, by Maurice’s simple exclamation, “ Ah ! ” 
which seemed to him to be enigmatical and 
mysterious. But nonsense ! all this was fool- 
ish ; his friend’s questions were perfectly nat- 
ural. 

“ Shall we pass the evening together, my 
dear Maurice ? ” 

“ It is impossible this evening,” replied 
Maurice, still continuing his walk. “ A duty — 
I have an engagement.” 

Amedee had the feeling that he had come 
at an unfortunate time, and discreetly took 
his departure. Maurice had seemed indiffer- 
ent and less cordial than usual. 

“ What is the matter with him?” said the 
poet to himself several times, while dining in 
the little restaurant in the Latin Quarter. He 
afterward went to the Com^die Frangaise, to 
kill time, as well as to inquire after his drama 
of Jocquelet, who played that evening in the 
“ Legataire Universal.” 

The comedian received him in his dressing- 
room, being already arrayed in Crispin’s long 
boots and black trousers. He was seated in 
his shirt-sleeves before his toilet-table, and 
had just pasted over his smooth lips the bristl- 
ing mustache of this traditional personage. 
Without rising, or even saying “ Good-day,” 
he cried out to the poet as he recognized him 
in the mirror : 


2i6 


The Days of My Youth. 


“ No news as to your piece ! The manager 
has not one moment to himself ; we are get- 
ting ready for the revival of ‘ Camarderie.’ 
But we shall be through with it in two days, 
and tlien ” 

And immediately talking to hear himself 
talk, and to exercise his terrible organ, he 
belched out, like the noise from an opened 
dam, a torrent of commonplace things. He 
praised Scribe’s works that they had put 
on the stage again ; he announced that the 
famous Guillery, his senior in the comedy 
line, would be execrable in this performance, 
and would make a bungle of it. He com- 
plained of being worried to death by the pur- 
suit of a great lady, “ you know, stage box 6,” 
and showed, with a conceited gesture, a letter 
tossed in among the jars of paint and po- 
made, which smelled of musk. Then, ascend- 
ing to subjects of a more elevated order, he 
condemned politics of the Tuileries, and scorn- 
fully exposed the imperial corruption while 
recognizing that this “ poor Badingue,” who, 
three days before, had paid a little compliment 
to the actor, was of more account than his 
surroundings. 

The poet went home and retired bewildered 
by such gossip. When he awoke, the agony 
of his thoughts about Maria had become still 
more painful. When should he see Louise 


The Days of My Youth. 217 

again? Would her reply be favorable? In 
spite of the fine autumn morning his heart 
was troubled, and he felt that he had no cour- 
age. His administrative work had never 
seemed more loathsome than on that day. 
His fellow-clerk, an amateur in hunting, had 
just had two days’ absence, and inflicted upon 
him, in an unmerciful manner, his stories of 
slaughtered partridges, and dogs who pointed 
so wonderfully well, and of course punctuated 
all this with numerous “ Pan ! Pans ! ” to imi- 
tate the report of a double-barrelled gun. 

As he left the office Amedee regained his 
serenity a little ; he returned home by the 
quays, hunting after old books and enjoying 
tlie pleasures of a beautiful evening, watching, 
in the golden sky, around the spires of Sainte- 
Chapelle, a large flock of swallows assembling 
for their approaching departure. 

At night-fall, after dining, he resolved to 
baffle his impatience by working all the even- 
ing and retouching one act of his drama with 
which he was not perfectly content. He went 
to his room, lighted his lamp and seated him- 
self before his open manuscript. Now then ! 
to work ! He had been silly ever since the 
night before. Why should he imagine that 
there was misfortune in the air ? Do such 
things as presentiments exist ? 

Suddenly three light, but hasty and sharp 


2i8 


The Days of My Youth. 


knocks were struck upon his door. Amddee 
arose, took his lamp, and opened it. He 
jumped back ! there stood Louise Gerard in 
her deep mourning ! 

“You? — At my rooms? — At this hour? — 
What has happened ? ” 

She entered and dropped into the poet’s 
arm-chair. While he put the lamp upon the 
table he noticed that the young girl was as white 
as wax. Then she seized his hands and pressing 
them with all her strength, she said, in a voice 
unlike her own — a voice hoarse with despair : 

“Amedee, I come to you by instinct, as to- 
ward our only friend, as to a brother, as to the 
only man who will be able to help us repair 
the frightful misfortune which overwhelms 
us ! ” She stopped, stifled with emotion. 

“A misfortune ! ” exclaimed the young man. 
“ What misfortune ? Maria ? ” 

“Yes! Maria!” 

“An accident ? — An illness ? ” 

Louise made a rapid gesture with her arm 
and head which signified: “If it were only 
that ! ” With her mouth distorted by a bitter 
smile and with lowered eyes, talking confused- 
ly, she said : 

“ M. Maurice Roger — yes — your friend 
Maurice ! A miserable wretch ! — he has de- 
ceived and ruined the unhappy child ! Oh ! 
what infamy ! — and now — now ” 


The Days of My Youth. 


219 


Her deathly pale face flushed and became 
purple to the roots of her hair. 

“Now Maria will become a mother ! ” 

At these words the poet gave a cry like 
some enraged beast ; he reeled and would 
have fallen if the table had not been near. 
He sat down on the edge of it, supporting him- 
self with his hands, completely frozen as if 
from a great chill. Louise, overcome with 
shame, sat in the arm-chair, hiding her face in 
her hands while great tear-drops rolled down 
between the fingers of her ragged gloves. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


It had been more than three months since 
Maria and Maurice had met again. One day 
the young man went to the Louvre to see his 
favorite pictures of the painters of the Eigh- 
teenth Century. His attention was attracted 
by the beautiful hair of a young artist dressed 
in black, who was copying one of Rosalba’s 
portraits. It was our pretty pastel artist whose 
wonderful locks disturbed all the daubers in 
the museum, and which made colorists Sig- 
nol’s pupils themselves. Maurice approached 
the copyist, and then both exclaimed at once, 
“ Mademoiselle Maria ! ” 

“ Monsieur Maurice ! 

She had recognized him so quickly and witli 
such a charming smile, she had not then for- 
gotten him ? When he used to visit Pere 
Gerard he had noticed that she was not dis- 
pleased with him ; but after such a long time, 
at first sight, to obtain such a greeting, such a 
delighted exclamation ! it was flattering. 

The young man standing by her easel, with 
his hat off, so graceful and elegant in his well- 


The Days of My Youth. 


221 


cut garments, commenced to talk with her. 
He spoke first, in becoming and proper terms, 
of her father’s death ; inquired for her mother 
and sister, congratulated himself upon having 
been recognized thus, and then yielding to his 
bold custom, he added, 

“ As to myself, I hesitated at first. You 
have grown still more beautiful in two years.” 

As she blushed, he continued in a joking 
way, which excused his audacity : 

‘‘ Amedee told me that you had become de- 
licious, but now I hardly dare ask him for 
news of you. Ever since you have lived at 
Montmartre — and I know that he sees you 
every Sunday — he has never offered to take 
me with him to pay my respects. Upon my 
word of honor. Mademoiselle Maria, I believe 
that he is in love with you and as jealous as a 
Turk.” 

She protested against it, confused but still 
smiling. 

Ah ! if he had known of the dream that 
Maria had kept concealed in one corner of her 
heart ever since their first meeting. If he had 
known that her only desire was to be chosen 
and loved by this handsome Maurice, who had 
gone through their house and among poor 
Papa Gerard’s bric-^-brac like a meteor ! 
Why not, after all ? Did she not possess that 
great power, beauty ? Her father, her mother. 


222 


The Days of My Youth. 


and even her sister, tlie wise Louise, had often 
said so to her. Yes ! from the very first she 
had been charmed by this young man with the 
golden mustache, and the ways of a young 
lord ; she had hoped. to please him, and later, 
in spite of poverty and death, she had contin- 
ued to be intoxicated with this folly and to 
dream of this narcotic against grief, of the re- 
turn of this Prince Charming. Poor Maria, 
so good and so artless, who had been told too 
many times that she was pretty ! Poor little 
spoiled child ! 

When he left you yesterday, little Maria, 
after half an hour’s pleasing conversation, 
Maurice said to you jokingly : “ Do not tell 
Violette, above all, that we have met. I 
should lose my best friend.” You not only 
said nothing to Amedee, but you told neither 
your mother nor your sister. For Louise and 
Madame Gerard are prudent and wise, and they 
still tell you to avoid this rash fellow who 
has accosted you in a public place, and has 
told you at once that you are beautiful and 
beloved. They would scold you ; they would 
tell you that this young man is of a rich and 
distinguished family ; that his mother has 
great ambitions for him ; that you have only 
your old black dress and beautiful eyes, and 
to-morrow, when you return to the Louvre, 
Madame Gerard will establish herself near 


The Days of My Youth. 223 

your easel and discourage the young gal- 
lant. 

But little Maria you conceal it from your 
mother and Louise ! You have a secret from 
your family ! To-morrow when you make your 
toilet before the mirror and twist up your 
golden hair, your heart will beat with hope 
and vanity. In the Louvre your attention 
will be distracted from your work when you 
hear a man’s step resound in a neighboring 
gallery, and when Maurice arrives you will 
doubtless be troubled, but very much sur- 
prised and not displeased, ah ! only too much 
pleased. Little Maria, little Maria, he talks 
to you in a low tone now. His blond mus- 
tache is very near your cheek and you do well 
to lower your eyes, for I see a gleam of pleas- 
ure under your long lashes. I do not hear 
what he says, nor your replies ; but how fast 
he works, how he gains your confidence ! 
You will compromise yourself, little Maria, if 
you keep him too long by your easel. Four 
o’clock will soon strike and the watchman in 
the green coat, who is snoozing before Wat- 
teau’s designs, will arouse from his torpor, 
stretch his arms, look at his watch, get up 
from his seat, and call out “Time to close.” 
Why do you allow Maurice to help you 
arrange your things, to accompany you 
through the galleries, carrying your box of 


224 


The Days of My Youth. 


pastels ? The long, lanky girl in the Salon 
Carre, who affects the English ways, the one 
who will never finish copying the “ Vierge au 
coussin vert,” has followed you into the Louvre 
court. Take care ! She has noticed, envious 
creature ! that you are very much moved as 
you take leave of your companion, and that 
you let your hand remain for a second in his. 
This old maid a I’anglaise has a viper’s tongue. 
To-morrow you will be the talk of the Louvre, 
and the gossip will spread to the ficole des 
Beaux-Arts, even to Signol’s studio, where 
tiie two daubers, your respectful admirers, 
who think of cutting their throats in your 
honor, will accost each other with a “Well! 
the pretty pastellist ! Yes, I know, she has a 
lover.” 

If it was only a lover ! But the pretty pastel- 
list has been very careless, more foolish than 
the old maid or the two young fellows dream 
of. It is so sweet to hear him say : “ I love 
you ! ” and so delicious to listen for the ques- 
tion : “ And you, do you love me a little ? ” 
when she is dying to say “ Yes ! ” Bending 
her head and blushing with confusion under 
Maurice’s ardent gaze, the pretty Maria ends 
by murmuring the fatal “Yes.” Then she 
sees Maurice turn pale with joy, and he says 
to her, “ I must talk with you, to you alone ; 
not before these bores.” She replies : “ But 


The Days of My Youth. 225 

how ? It is impossible ! ” Then he asks if 
she does not trust him, if she does not believe 
him to be an honest man ? and the young 
girl’s look says more than any protestation 
would. 

“ Well ! to-morrow morning at ten o’clock — 
instead of coming to the Louvre — will you ? 
I will wait for you on Quay d’Orsay, before 
the Saint Cloud pier.” 

She was there at the appointed hour, over- 
whelmed with emotion and ready to faint. He 
took her by the arm and led her onto the boat. 

“ Do you see, now we are almost alone. 
Give me the pleasure of wandering through 
the fields with you. It is such beautiful 
weather. Be tranquil, we shall return early.” 

Oh ! the happy day ! Maria sees pass before 
her, as she is seated beside Maurice, who is 
whispering in her ear loving words and whose 
glances cover her with caresses, as if in a 
dream, views of Paris that were not familiar 
to her, high walls, arches of bridges, then the 
bare suburbs, the smoking manufactories of 
Grenelle, the Bas Meudon, with its boats and 
public houses. At last, on the borders of the 
stream, the park with its extensive verdure 
appeared. 

They wandered there for a long time under 
the chestnut trees, loaded with their fruit in its 
green shells. The sun filtering through the 
IS 


226 


The Days of My Youth. 


foliage dotted ihe walks with patches of light, 
and Maurice continued to repeat to Maria 
that he loved her ; that he had never loved 
anyone but her ; that he had loved her from 
the very first time that he saw her at Pere 
Gerard’s and that neither time nor absence 
had been able to drive away the remembrance 
of her. And at this moment he imagined 
that it was true. He did not think that he 
was telling a lie. As to poor Maria, do not 
be too severe upon her ! think of her youth, 
her poverty and imprisonment — she was over- 
whelmed with happiness. She could think of 
nothing to say, and giving herself up into the 
young man’s arms she had hardly the strength 
to turn, from time to time, her eyes tortured 
with love upon him. 

Is it necessary to tell how she succumbed ? 
how they went to a restaurant and dined ? 
Emotion, the heavy heat of the afternoon, 
champagne, that golden wine that she tasted 
for the first time, stunned the imprudent child. 
Her charming head slips down upon the sofa- 
pillow, she is nearly fainting. 

“You are too warm,” said Maurice. “This 
bright liglit makes you ill.” 

He draws the curtains ; they are in the 
darkness and he takes the young girl in his 
arms, covering her hands, eyes, and mouth 
with kisses — 


The Days of My Youth. 


227 


Doubtless he swears to her that she shall 
be his wife. He only asks a little time, a few 
weeks, in which to prepare his mother, the 
ambitious Madame Roger, for his unexpected 
marriage. Maria never doubts him, but over- 
come by her fault she feels an intense shame, 
and buries her face on her lover’s shoulder. 
She thinks then, the guilty girl, of her past ; of 
her innocence and poverty, of her humble but 
honest home ; her dead father, her mother and 
sister — her two mothers properly speaking — 
who yet call her “ little one ” and always con- 
sider her as a child, an infant in all its purity. 
She feels impressed with her sin and wishes 
that she might die there at once. 

Oh ! I beg of you, be charitable to the poor 
weak Maria, for she is young and she is going 
to suffer ! 

Maurice was not a rascal after all ; he was 
in earnest when he promised to marry her 
without delay. He even meant to admit all 
to his mother the next day ; but when he saw 
her she had never appeared so imposing to 
him with her gray hair under her widow’s cap. 
He shivered as he thought of the tearful 
scenes, the reproaches and anger, and in his 
indolence he said to himself : Upon my honor, 
I will do it later ! ” He loves Maria after his 
fashion. He is faithful to her, and when she 
steals away an hour from her work to come to 


228 


The Days of My Youth. 


see him, he is uneasy at the least delay. She 
is truly adorable, only Maurice does not like 
the unhappy look that she wears when she 
asks him in a trembling voice : “ Have you 

spoken to your mother ? ” He embraces her, 
reassures her. “Be easy. Leave me time to 
arrange it.” The truth is that now he begins 
to be perplexed at the idea of this marriage. 
It is his duty, he knows that very well ; but he 
is not twenty-three years old yet. There is no 
hurry. After all, is it duty ? the little one 
yielded easily enough. Has he not the right 
to test her and wait a little ? It is what his 
mother would advise him, he is certain. That 
is the only reasonable way to look at it. 

Alas ! egotists and cowards always have a 
reason for everything ! 

How dearly poor Maria’s foolish step has 
cost her ! How heavy such a secret weighs 
upon the child’s heart ! For a few moments 
of uneasy intoxication with this man whom she 
already doubts and who sometimes makes her 
afraid, she must lie to her mother without 
blushing or lowering her eyes and enter Mau- 
rice’s house veiled and hiding like a thief. 
But that is nothing yet. After some time of 
this agonizing life her health is troubled. 
Quickly she goes to find Maurice ! She ar- 
rives unexpectedly and finds liim lying upon 
the sofa smoking a cigar. Without giving 


The Days of My Youth. 229 

him time to rise, she throws herself into his 
arms and bursting into sobs makes her terrible 
avowal. At first he only gives a start of angry 
astonishment, a harsh glance. 

“ Bah ! you must be mistaken.” 

“ I am sure of it I tell you, I am sure of 
it ! ” 

Slie has caught his angry glance and feels 
condemned in advance. However he gives 
her a cold kiss and it is with a great effort 
that she stammers : 

Maurice — you must — speak to your 

mother ” 

He rises with an impatient gesture and 
Maria seats herself — her strength is leaving 
her — while he walks up and down the room. 

My poor Maria,” he begins in a hesitating 
manner, “ I dared not tell you, but my mother 
will not consent to our marriage — now at 
least.” 

He lies ! He has not spoken to his mother ; 
she knows it. Ah ! unhappy creature ! he 
does not love her ! and discouraged, with a 
rumbling noise in her ears, she listens to 
Maurice as he speaks in his soft voice. 

“Oh ! be tranquil. I shall not abandon you, 
my poor child. If what you say is true — if 
you are sure of it, then the best thing that you 
can do, do you see, is to leave your family 
and come and live with me. • At first we will 


230 


The Days of My Youth. 


go away from Paris ; you can be confined in 
the country. We can put the child out to 
nurse, they will take care of the little brat, of 
course. And later, perhaps, my mother will 
soften and will understand that we must marry. 
No, truly, the more I think of it the more I 
believe that that is the best way to do. Yes ! 
I know very well it will be hard to leave your 
home, but what can you do, my darling ? You 
can write your mother a very affectionate let- 
ter.’* 

And going to her he takes her, inert and 
heart-broken into his arms, and tries to show 
himself loving. 

“You are my wife, my dear little wife, I re- 
peat it. Are you not glad, eh ! that we can 
live together ? ” 

This is what he proposes to do. He thinks 
to take her publicly to his house and to blazon 
her shame before the eyes of everybody ! Ma- 
ria feels that she is lost. She rises abruptly 
and says to him in the tone of a somnambu- 
list : “That will do. We will talk of it again.” 

She goes away and returns to Montmartre 
at a crazy woman’s pace, and finds her mother 
knitting and her sister ready to lay the table 
—yes ! as if nothing at all was the matter. 
She takes their hands and falls at their feet ! 

Ah ! poor women ! 

They had already been very much tried. 


The Days of My Youth. 


231 


The decay of this worthy family was lament- 
able ; but in spite of all, yesterday even, they 
endured their fate with resignation. Yes ! 
the economy, the degrading drudgery, the old 
mended gowns — they accepted all this without 
a murmur. A noble sentiment sustained and 
gave them courage. All three — the old mamma 
in a linen cap did the cooking and the wash- 
ing, the elder sister gave lessons at forty sous, 
and the little one worked in pastels — were 
vaguely conscious of representing something 
very humble but sacred and noble — a family 
without a blemish to their name. They felt 
that they moved in an atmosphere of esteem 
and respect. “ These ladies upon the first 
floor have so many accomplishments” say the 
neighbors. Their apartment — with its stained 
wood-work, its torn wall-paper, but where they 
were all united in work and drawn closer and 
closer to each other in love — had still the 
sweetness of a home ; and upon their ragged 
mourning, their dilapidated furniture, the 
meagre meat soup at night, the pure light of 
honor gleamed and watched over them. Now, 
after this guilty child’s avowal, all this was 
ended, lost forever ! There was a blemish 
upon their life of duty and poverty, upon their 
irreproachable past, even upon the father’s 
memory. Certainly the mother and elder 
sister excused the poor creature who sobbed 


232 The Days of My Youth. 

under their kisses and begged their pardon. 
However, when they gazed at each other with 
red eyes and dry lips, they measured the fall 
of the family ; they saw for the first time how 
frightful their destitution and distress was ; 
they felt the unbearable feeling of shame glide 
into their hearts like a sinister and unexpected 
guest who, at the first glance, makes one un- 
derstand that he has come to be master of the 
lodging. This was the secret, the overwhelm- 
ing secret, which the distracted Louise Gerard 
revealed that evening to her only friend, Ame- 
d^e Violette, acting thus by instinct, as a 
woman with too heavy a burden* throws it to 
the ground, crying for help. 

When she had ended her cruel confidence, 
to which the poet listened with his face buried 
in his hands, and he uncovered his face creas- 
ed and furrowed by the sudden wrinkles of 
despair, Louise was frightened. 

“ How I have wounded him ! ” she thought. 
“ How he loves Maria ! ” 

But she saw shining in the young man’s 
eyes a gloomy resolution. 

“ All right, Louise,” muttered he between 
his teeth. “ Do not tell me any more, I beg of 
you. I do not know where to find Maurice at 
this hour, but he will see me to-morrow morn- 
ing, rest easy. If the evil is not repaired — 
and at once ” 


The Days of My Youth. 


233 


He did not finish ; his voice was stifled with 
grief and rage, and upon an almost imperious 
gesture to leave, Louise departed, overcome 
by her undertaking. 

No, Maurice Roger was not a villain. 
After Maria’s departure he felt ashamed and 
displeased with himself. A mother! poor lit- 
tle thing ! Certainly he would take charge of 
her and the child ; he would behave like a 
gentleman. But to speak plainly, he did not 
now love her as much as he did. His vaga- 
bond nature was already tired of this love 
affair. This one was watered too much by 
tears. Bah ! he was usually lucky, and this 
troublesome affair would come out all right 
like the others. Truly, it was as bad an acci- 
dent as if one had fallen into a hole and broken 
his leg. And then, who could tell ? Chance 
and time arrange many things. The child 
might not live, perhaps ; at any rate, it was per- 
fectly natural that he should wait and see what 
happened. 

The next morning the reckless Maurice — 
who had not slept badly — was tranquilly pre- 
paring his palette while awaiting his model, 
when he saw Amcdee Violette enter his studio. 
At the first glance he saw that the poet knew 
all. 

“ Maurice,” said Amedee, in a freezing tone, 
“ I received a visit from Mademoiselle Louise 


234 


The Days of My Youth. 


Gerard last evening. She told me everything 
— all, do you understand me perfectly ? I have 
come to learn if I am mistaken as regards 
you — if Maurice Roger is an honest man.” 

A flame darted from the young artist’s eyes. 
Amedee, with his livid complexion and hag- 
gard from a sleepless night and tears, was 
pitiful to see. And then it was Amedee, little 
Amedee whom Maurice sincerely loved, for 
whom he had kept, ever since their college 
days, a sentiment, all the more precious that 
it flattered his vanity, the indulgent affection 
and protection of a superior. 

“ Oh ! Oh ! grand melodramatic words 
already ! ” said he, placing his palette upon 
the table. “ Amedee, my dear boy, I do not 
recognize you, and if you have any explana- 
tion that you wish to ask of your old friend, 
it is not thus that you should do it. You 
have received, you tell me. Mademoiselle 
Gerard’s confidence. I know you are devoted 
to these ladies. I understand your emotion and 
I think your intervention legitimate ; but you 
see I speak calmly and in a friendly way. 
Cairo yourself in your turn and do not forget 
that, in spite of your zeal for these ladies, I am 
the best and dearest companion of your youth. 
I am, I know, in one of the gravest situations 
of my life. Let us talk of it. Advise me, you 
have the right to do so ; but not in that tone 


The Days of My Youth. 


235 


of voice, that angry threatening tone which I 
pardon, but which hurts and makes me doubt, 
were it possible, your love for me.” 

“Ah ! you know very well that I love you,” 
replied the unhappy Amedee, “but why do 
you need my advice ? You are frank enough 
to deny nothing. You admit that it is true, 
that you have seduced a young girl. Does 
not your conscience tell you what to do ? ” 

“ To marry her ? That is my intention. 
But, Amedee, do you think of my mother ? 
This marriage will distress her, destroy all of 
her hopes and ambitions. I hope to be able 
to gain her consent ; only I must have time 
to turn myself. Later — very soon. I do not 
say — if the child lives.” 

This word, torn from Maurice by the cynic- 
• ism which is in the heart of all egotists, made 
Amedee angry. 

“Your mother!” exclaimed he. “Your 
mother is the widow of a French officer who 
died facing the enemy. She will understand 
it, I am sure, as a matter of honor and duty. 
Go and find her, tell her that you have ruined 
this unfortunate child. Your mother will ad- 
vise you to marry her. She will command 
you to do it.” 

This argument was forcible and direct, and 
impressed Maurice ; but his friend’s violence 
irritated him. 


236 


The Days of My Youth. 


“You go to work badly, Ainedee, I repeat 
it,” said he, raising his tone. “ You have no 
right to prejudge my mother’s opinion, and I 
receive no orders from anybody. After all, 
nothing authorizes you to do it ; if it is be- 
cause you were in love with Maria ” 

A furious cry iaterrupted him. Amedee, 
with wild eyes and shaking his fists, walked 
toward Maurice, speaking in a cutting tone : 

“Well, yes I I loved her,” said he, “and I 
wished to make her my wife. You, who no 
longer love her, who took her out of caprice, 
as you have taken others, you have destroyed 
all of my dreams for the future. She preferred 
you, and, understand me, Maurice, I am too 
proud to complain, too just to hold spite 
against you. I am only here to prevent your 
committing an infamy. Upon my honor! If ' 
you repulse me, our friendship is destroyed 
forever, and I dare not think of what will hap- 
pen between us, but it will be terrible ! Alas ! 

I am wrong, I do not talk to you as I ought. 
Maurice, there is time yet ! Only listen to 
your heart, which I know is generous and 
good. You have wronged an innocent child 
and driven a poor and worthy family to de- 
spair. You can repair the evil you have 
caused. You wish to. You will ! I beg of 
you, do it out of respect for yourself and the 
name you bear. Act like a brave man and a 


The Days of My Youth. 


237 


gentleman ! Give this young girl — whose 
only wrong has been in loving you too much 
— give the mother of your child your name, 
your heart, your love. You will be happy 
with her and through her. Go ! I shall not 
be jealous of your happiness, 'but only too 
glad to have found my friend, my loyal Mau- 
rice once more, and to be able to still love 
and admire him as heretofore.” 

Stirred by these warm words, and fatigued 
by the discussion and struggle, the painter 
reached out his hands to his friend, who 
pressed them in his. Suddenly he looked at 
Amedee and saw his eyes shining with tears, 
and partly from sorrow, but more from want 
of will and moral weakness, to end it, he ex- 
claimed, 

“You are right after all. We will arrange 
this matter without delay. What do you want 
me to do ?” 

Ah ! how Amedee bounded upon his neck ! 

“My good, my dear Maurice ! Quickly dress 
yourself. Let us go to these ladies and em- 
brace and console this dear child. Ah ! I 
knew very well that you would understand me 
and that your heart was in the right place. 
How happy these poor women will be ! Now 
then, my old friend, is it not good to do one’s 
duty ? ” 

Yes, Maurice found that it was good now ; 


238 


The Days of My Youth. 


excited and carried away by his friend, he 
hurried toward the good action that was 
pointed out to him as he would to a pleasure- 
party, and while putting on his coat to go 
out, he said, 

“ After all, my mother can only approve, 
and since she always does as I wish she will 
end by adoring my little Maria. It is all 
right ; there is no way of resisting you, Vio- 
lette. You are a good and persuasive Vio- 
lette. Now, then, here I am, ready — a hand- 
kerchief — my hat. Off we go ! ” 

They went out and took a cab which carried 
them toward Montmartre. The easy-going 
Maurice, reconciled to his future, sketched 
out his plan of life. Once married, he would 
work seriously. At first, immediately after the 
ceremony, he would leave with his wife to pass 
the winter in the South, where she could be 
confined. He knew a pretty place in the Cor- 
niche, near Antibes, where he should not lose 
his time, as he could bring back marine and 
landscape sketches. But it would not be until 
the next winter that he would entirely arrange 
his life. The painter Laugeol was going to 
move ; he would hire his apartment — “ a su- 
perb studio, my dear fellow, with windows 
looking out upon the Luxembourg.” He 
could see himself there now, working hard, 
having a successful picture in the Salon, 


The Days of My Youth. 


239 


wearing a medal. He chose even the hang- 
ings in the sleeping-rooms in advance. Then, 
upon beautiful days, how convenient the gar- 
den would be for the child and the nurse. 

Suddenly, in the midst of this chattering, 
he noticed Amedee’s sad face as he shrank 
into the back of the carriage. 

“ Forgive me, my dear friend,’’ said he, tak- 
ing him affectionately by the hand. “ I for- 
got what you told me just now. Ah ! fate is 
ridiculous, when I think that my happines,s 
makes you feel badly.” 

The poet gave his friend a long, sad look. 

“ Be happy with Maria and make her happy, 
that is all I ask for you both.” 

They had reached the foot of Montmartre, 
and the carriage went slowly up the steep 
streets. 

“ My friend,” said Amedee, “ we shall arrive 
there soon. You will go in alone to see these 
ladies, will you not ? Oh ! do not be afraid. I 
know’ Louise and the mother. They will not 
utter one word of reproach. Your upright 
act wdll be appreciated by them as it merits — 
but you will excuse me from going with you, 
do you see ? It would be too painful for me.” 

“Yes, I understand, my poor Amedee. As 
it pleases you. Now then, courage, you will 
be cured of it. Everything is alleviated in 
time,” replied Maurice, who supposed every- 


240 


The Days of My Youth, 


body to have his fickle nature. “ I shall al- 
ways remember the service that you have ren- 
dered me, for I blush now as I think of it. 
Yes, I was going to do a villanous act. Arne- 
dee, embrace me.” 

They threw their arms about each other’s 
neck and the carriage stopped. Once on the 
sidewalk, Amedee noticed his friend’s wry 
face as he saw the home of the Gerards, a 
miserable commonplace lodging-house, whose 
crackled plastered front made one think of the 
wrinkles on a poor man’s face. On the right 
and on the left of the entrance door were two 
shops, one a butcher’s, the other a fruiterer’s, 
exhaling their fetid odors. But AmMee paid 
no attention to the delicate Maurice’s repug- 
nance, saying, 

“ Do you see that little garden at the end of 
the walk ? It is there. An revoir.” 

They separated with a last grasp of the 
hand. Tlie poet saw Maurice enter the dark 
alley, cross the narrow court and push the 
gate open into the garden, and then disap- 
pear among the mass of verdure. How many 
times Amedee had passed through there, 
moved at the thought that he was going to 
see Maria; and Maurice crossed this threshold 
for the first time in his life to take her away. 
He wanted her ! He had himself given his 
beloved to another ! He had begged, almost 


The Days of My Youth, 


241 


forced his rival, so to speak, to rob him of his 
dearest hope ! What sorrow ! 

Amedee gave his address to the driver and 
entered the carriage again. A cold autumn 
rain had commenced to fall, and he was obliged 
to close the windows. As he was harshly jolted 
through the streets of Paris at a trot, the young 
poet, all of a shiver, saw carriages streaming 
with water, bespattered pedestrians under their 
umbrellas, a heavy gloom fall from the leaden 
sky ; and Amedee, stupefied with grief, felt a 
strange sensation of emptiness, as if somebody 
had taken away his heart. 

When he entered his room, the sight of his 
furniture, his engravings, his books on their 
shelves, and his table covered with its papers 
distressed him. His long evenings of study 
near this lamp, the long hours of thought over 
some difficult work, the austere and cheer- 
less year that he had lived there, all had been 
dedicated to Maria. It was in order to ob- 
tain her some day, that he had labored so as- 
siduously and obstinately ! And now the friv- 
olous and guilty child was doubtless crying 
for joy in Maurice’s arms, her husband to- 
morrow ? 

Seated before his table with his head buried 
in his hands, Amedee sank into the depths of 
melancholy. His life seemed such a failure, 
his fate so disastrous, his future so gloomy, he 
16 


242 


The Days of My Youth. 


felt so discouraged and lonely, that for the mo- 
ment the courage to live deserted him. It 
seemed to him that an invisible hand touched 
him upon the shoulder with compassion, and 
he had at once a desire and a fear to turn 
around and look ; for he knew very well that 
this hand was that of the dead. He did not 
fancy it under the hideous aspect of a skele- 
ton, but as a calm, sad, but yet very sweet face 
which drew him against its breast with a 
mother’s tenderness, and made him and his 
grief sleep — a sleep without dreams, profound 
and eternal. Suddenly he turned around and 
uttered a frightful cry. For a moment he 
thought he saw, extended at his feet, and still 
holding a razor in his hand, the dead body of 
his unhappy father, a horrible wound in his 
throat, and his thin gray hair in a pool of 
blood ! 

He was still trembling with this frightful 
hallucination when somebody knocked at his 
door. It was the concierge who brought him 
two letters. 

“ The first was stamped with the celebrated 
name “ Comedie Fran^aise, 1680.” The mana- 
ger announced in the most gracious terms that 
he had read with the keenest pleasure his 
drama in verse, entitled “ L’ Atelier,” and he 
hoped that the reading committee would ac- 
cept this work. 


The Days of My Youth. 


243 


“Too late !” thought the young poet, as he 
tore open the other envelope. 

This second letter bore the address of a 
Paris notary, and informed M. Amedee Vio- 
lette that M. Isidore Gaufre had died without 
leaving a will, and that, as nephew of the de- 
funct, he would receive a part of the estate, 
still difficult to appraise, but which would not 
be less than two hundred and fifty or three 
hundred thousand francs. 

Success and fortune ! Everything came at 
once ! Amedee was at first overwhelmed with 
surprise ; but with ‘all these unhoped-for fa- 
vors of fortune which did not give him the' 
power to repair his misfortune, the noble poet 
deeply realized that riches and glory were not 
equal to a great love or a beautiful dream, and 
completely upset by the irony of his fate, he 
broke into a harsh burst of laughter. 


CHAPTER XV. 


The late M. Violette was not mistaken when 
he supposed M. Gaufre capable of disinherit- 
ing his family in favor of his servant-mistress, 
but Berenice was wanting in patience. The 
rough beard and cap of an irresistible ser- 
geant-major were the ruination of the girl. 
One Sunday, when M. Gaufre, as usual, recited 
vespers at Saint-Sulpice, he found that for the 
first time in his life he had forgotten his snuff- 
box. The holy offices were unbearable to 
this hypocritical person unless frequently 
broken by a good pinch of snuff. Instead of 
waiting for the final benediction and then go- 
ing to take his usual walk, he left his church- 
warden’s stall and returned unexpectedly to 
the Rue Servandoni, where he surprised Bere- 
nice in a loving interview with her military 
friend. The old man’s rage was pitiful to be- 
hold. He turned the Normandy beauty igno- 
miniously out of doors, tore up the will he had 
made in her favor, and died some weeks after 
from indigestion, and left, in spite of himself, 
all his fortune to his natural heirs. 


The Days of My Youth, 


245 


Amedee’s drama had been accepted by the 
Comedie Frangaise, but was not to be brought 
out until spring. The notary in charge of his 
uncle’s estate had advanced him a few thou- 
sand francs, and feeling sad and not having 
the courage to be present at the marriage of 
Maurice and Maria, the poet wished at least 
to enjoy, in a way, his new fortune and the 
independence that it gave him ; so he resigned 
his position and left for a trip to Italy, in the 
hope of dissipating his grief. 

Ah, never travel when the heart is troubled ! 
You sleep with the echo of a dear name in 
your thoughts, and the half sleep of nights on 
a train are feverish and full of nightmares. 
Amedee suffered tortures from it. In the 
midst of the continual noise of the cars he 
thought he could hear sad voices crying loudly 
the name of a beloved lost one. Sometimes 
the tumult would become quiet for a little ; 
brakes, springs, wheels, all parts of the furi- 
ous cast-iron machine seemed to him tired of 
howling the deafening rhythmical gallop, and 
the vigorously rocked traveller could distin- 
guish in the diminished uproar a strain of 
music, at first confused like a groan, then 
more distinct, but always the same cruel, 
haunting monotone — a fragment of a song 
that Maria once sang when they were both 
children. Suddenly a mournful and pro- 


246 The Days of My Youth. 

longed whistle would resound through the 
night. The express rushed madly into a tun- 
nel. Under the sonorous roof, the frightful 
concert redoubled, exasperating him among 
all these metallic clamors ; but Amedee still 
heard a distant sound like that of a black- 
smith’s hammer, and each heavy blow made 
his heart bound painfully. 

Ah ! never travel, and above all, never 
travel alone, if your heart is sad ! How hos- 
tile and inhospitable the first sensation is that 
one feels then when entering an unknown 
city ! Amedee was obliged to submit to the 
tiresome delay of looking after his baggage 
in a commonplace depot ; the hasty packing 
into an omnibus of tired-out travellers, dart- 
ing glances of bad humor and suspicion ; to 
the reception upon the hotel steps by the in- 
evitable Swiss porter with his gold-banded 
cap, murdering all the European languages, 
greeting all the new-comers, and getting mixed 
in his “yes, sir,” “ja, wohl,” and “si, signor.” 
Amedee was an inexperienced tourist, who 
did not drag along with him a dozen trunks, 
and did not have a rich and indolent air ; so 
he was quickly despatched into a fourth-story 
room, by the Swiss polyglot, which looked 
out into an open well and was so gloomy, that 
while he washed his hands he was afraid of 
falling ill and dying there without help. A 


The Days of My Youth. 


247 


notice written in four languages hung upon 
the wall, and to add to his cheerfulness it ad- 
vised him to leave all of his valuables at the 
office of the hotel ; as if he had penetrated 
a forest infested with brigands. The rigid 
writing warned him still further that they 
looked upon him as a probable sharper, and 
his bill would be presented every five days. 

The tiresome life of railroads and table- 
d’hotes commenced for him. 

He was going to be dragged about from 
city to city like a bag of wheat or a cask of 
wine. He was going to dwell in pretentious 
and monumental hotels where he would be 
numbered like a convict ; he was going to 
meet the same carnivorous English family, 
with whom he might have made a tour of the 
world without exchanging one word ; swal- 
lowing every day the tasteless soup, old fish, 
tough vegetables, and insipid wine which have 
an international reputation, so to speak. But 
above all, he was to have the horror, every 
evening upon going to his room, of passing 
through those uniform and desolate corridors, 
faintly lighted by gas, where before each door 
are pairs of cosmopolitan shoes — heavy alpine 
shoes, filthy German boots, the conjugal boots 
of my lord and my lady, which make one think 
by their size of the troglodyte giants — wait- 
ing, with a fatigued air, their morning polish. 


248 


The Days of My Youth. 


The imprudent Amedee was destined to all 
sorts of weariness, all sorts of deceptions, and 
all the homesickness of a solitary traveller. 
At the sight of these famous monuments and 
celebrated sites, which have become in some 
way looked upon as models for painters and 
material for literary development, Am^d^e 
felt that sensation of “ already seen which 
paralyzes the faculty of admiration. Dare we 
say it ? The dome in Milan, that enormous 
quiver of white marble arrows, did not move 
him. He was indifferent to the sublime med- 
ley of bronze in the Baptistery in Florence ; 
and the leaning tower at Pisa produced sim- 
ply the effect of mystification. He walked 
miles through the museums and silent galler- 
ies, satiated with art and glutted with master- 
pieces. He was disgusted to find that he 
could not tolerate a dozen “ Adorations of the 
Shepherds," or fourteen “Descents from the 
Cross," consecutively, even if they were signed 
with the most glorious names. The scenes of 
suffering and martyrdom, so many times re- 
peated, were particularly distasteful to him ; 
and he took a still greater dislike even to a 
certain monk, always represented on his knees 
in prayer with an axe sticking in his tonsure, 
than to the everlasting Saint Sebastian pierced 
with arrows. His deadened and depraved at- 
tention only discerned the disagreeable and 


The Days of My Youth. 249 

ugly side of a work of art. In the adorable 
artless Originals he could see only childish 
and barbarous drawing, and he thought the 
old colorists’ yoik-of-an-egg tone monotonous. 
He wished to quicken his sensations, to see 
something extraordinary. He travelled tow- 
ard Venice, the noiseless city, the city without 
birds or verdure, toward that silent country 
of sky, marble, and water ; but once there, 
the reality seemed inferior to his dream. He 
did not have that shock of surprise and enthu- 
siasm in the presence of Saint Mark’s and the 
Doges’ palace that he hoped for. He had 
read too many descriptions of all these won- 
ders ; seen too many more or less faithful 
pictures, and in his disenchantment he re- 
called a lamp-shade which once, in his own 
home, had excited his childish imaginations — 
an ugly lamp-shade of blue pasteboard upon 
which was printed a nocturnal fete ; the il- 
luminations in the Ducal palace being repre- 
sented by a row of pin pricks. 

Once more I repeat it, never travel alone, 
and above all, never go to Venice alone and 
without love ! For young married people in 
their honeymoon, or a couple of lovers, the 
gondola is a floating boudoir, a nest upon the 
waters like a kingfisher’s. But for one who 
is sad to stretch himself upon the sombre 
cushions of the bark, the gondola is a tomb. 


250 The Days of My Youth. 

Toward the last of January, Amedee sud- 
denly returned to Paris. He would not be 
obliged to see Maurice or his young bride at 
once. They had been married one month and 
would remain in the South until the end of 
winter. He was recalled by the rehearsals 
of his drama. The notary who had charge of 
his affairs gave him twelve thousand pounds 
income, a large competency, which enabled 
him to work for the pure and disinterested 
love of art, and without concessions to com- 
mon people. The young poet furnished an 
elegant apartment in an old and beautiful 
house on the Quai d’Orsay, and sought out 
some of his old comrades, among others Paul 
Sillery, who now held a distinguished place in 
journalism ; and reappeared a little in society, 
becoming very quickly reconciled with life. 

His first call was upon Madame Roger. 
He was very glad to see Maurice’s mother ; 
she was a little sad but indulgent to Maurice, 
and resigned to her son’s marriage, because 
she felt satisfied that he had acted like a man 
of honor. He also went at once to Mont- 
martre to embrace Louise and Madame Gerard, 
who received him with great demonstrations. 
They were not as embarrassed in money mat- 
ters, for Maurice was very generous and had 
aided his wife’s family. Louise gave lessons 
now for a proper remuneration, and Madame 


2'he Days of My Youth. 


251 


Gerard was able to refuse, with tears of grat- 
itude, the poet’s offer of assistance, who filially 
opened his purse to her. He dined as usual 
with his old friends, and they had tact enough 
not to say too much about the newly married 
ones ; but there was one empty place at the 
table. He was once more seized with thoughts 
of the absent, and returned to his room that 
evening with an attack of the blues. 

The rehearsal of his piece which had just 
commenced at the Comedie Frangaise, the long 
sittings at the theatre, and the changes to be 
made from day to day, were a useful and pow- 
erful distraction for Amedee Violette’s grief. 
“ L’Atelier,” when played the first week in 
April, did not obtain more than a respectful 
greeting from the public ; it was an indiffer- 
ent success. This vulgar society, these simple, 
plain sentiments, the sweetheart in a calico 
dress, the respectable old man in short frock 
and overalls, the sharp lines where here and 
there boldly rang out a slang word of the fau- 
bourg ; above all, the scene representing a 
mill in full activity with its grumbling work- 
men, its machines in motion, even the contin- 
ual puffing of steam, all displeased the world- 
ly people and shocked them. This was too 
abrupt a change from luxurious drawing- 
rooms, titled persons, aristocratic adulteresses, 
and declarations of love murmured to the 


252 The Days of My Youth. 

heroine in full toilet by a lover leaning his 
elbow upon the piano, with all the airs and 
graces of a first-class “dude.” However, Joc- 
quelet, in the old artisan’s role, was emphatic 
and exaggerated, and an ugly and common- 
place debutante was an utter failure. The 
criticisms, generally routine in character, were 
not gracious, and the least surly ones con- 
demned Amedee’s attempt, qualifying it as an 
honorable effort. There were some slashes ; 
one “ long-haired ” fellow from the Cafe de Se- 
ville, failed in his criticism — the very one who 
once wrote a description of the violation of a 
tomb — to crush the author of “ L’Atelier ” in 
an ultra-classical article, wherein he protested 
against realism and called to witness all the 
silent sculptured authors in the hall. 

It was a singular thing, but Amedee was eas- 
ily consoled over his failure. He did not have 
the necessary qualities to succeed in the theat- 
rical line ? Very well, he would give it up, that 
was all ! It was not such a great misfortune, 
upon the whole, to abandon the most difficult 
art of all, but not the first ; which did not al- 
low a poet to act his own free liking. Amedee 
began to compose verses for himself — for his 
own gratification ; to become intoxicated with 
his own rhymes and fancies ; to gather with a 
sad pleasure the melancholy flowers that his 
love trouble had caused to blossom in his heart. 


The Days of My Youth. 


253 


Meanwhile summer arrived, and Maurice re- 
turned to Paris with his wife and a little boy, 
born at Nice, and Am^dee must go to see 
them, although he knew in advance that the 
visit would make him unhappy. 

The amateur painter was handsomer than 
ever. He was alone in his studio, wearing his 
same red jacket. He had decorated and even 
crammed the room full of luxurious and amus- 
ing knick-knacks. The careless young man 
received his friend as if nothing had happened 
between them, and after their greetings and 
inquiries as to old friends, and the events that 
had happened since their last meeting, they 
lighted their cigarettes. 

^ “Well, what have you done?” asked the 
poet. “You had great projects of work. 
Have you carried out your plans ? Have you 
many sketches to show me?” 

“ Upon my word ! no. Almost nothing. 
Do you know, when I was there I abandoned 
myself to living ; I played the lizard in the sun. 
Happiness is very engrossing, and I have been 
foolishly happy.” 

Then placing his hand upon his friend’s, 
who sat near him, he added : 

“ But I owe that happiness to you, my good 
Amedee.” 

Maurice said this carelessly, in order to 
satisfy his conscience. Did he remember, did 


254 


The Days of My Youth. 


he even suspect how unhappy the poet had 
been, and was now, on account of this happi- 
ness ? A bell rang. 

“Ah ! ” exclaimed the master of the house, 
joyfully. “ It is Maria returning with the 
baby from a walk in the gardens. This little 
citizen will be six weeks old to-morrow, and 
you must see what a handsome little fellow he 
is already.” 

Amed^e felt stifled with emotion. He was 
going to see her again ! To see her as a wife 
and a mother was quite different, of course. 

She appeared, raising the portiere with one 
hand, while behind her appeared the white 
bonnet and rustic face of a nurse. No ! she 
was not changed, but maternity, love, and a 
rich and easy life had expanded her beauty. 
She was dressed in a fresh and charming toi- 
lette. She blushed when she first recognized 
Amedee ; and he felt with sadness that his 
presence could only awaken unpleasant recol- 
lections in the young woman’s mind. 

“ Kiss each other like old acquaintances,” 
said the painter, laughing with the air of a 
man who is loved and sure of himself. 

But Amedee contented himself with kissing 
the tips of her glove, and the glance with 
which Maria thanked him for this reserve was 
one more torture for him to endure. She was 
grateful to him and gave him a kind smile. 


r 


The Days of My Youth. 255 

“ My mother and my sister,” said she, gra- 
ciously, “ often have the pleasure of a visit 
from you, Monsieur Amed^e. I hope that you 
will not make us jealous, but come often to 
see Maurice and me.” 

“ Maurice and me ! ” How soft and tender 
her voice and eyes became as she said these 
simple words, “ Maurice and me ! ” Ah ! were 
they not one ! How she loved him ! How 
she loved him ! 

Then AmMee must admire the baby, who 
was now awake in his nurse’s arms, aroused by 
his father’s noisy gayety. The child opened 
his blue eyes, as serious as those of an old 
man’s, and peeped out from the depth of lace, 
feebly squeezing the finger that the poet ex- 
tended to him. 

“ What do you call him ? ” asked AmMee, 
troubled to find anything to say. 

“ Maurice, after his father,” quickly re- 
sponded Maria, who also put a mint of love 
into these words. 

Amed^e could endure no more. He made 
some pretext for withdrawing and went away, 
promising that he would see them again 
soon. 

“ I shall not go there very often ! ” he said 
to himself, as he descended the steps, furious 
with himself that he was obliged to hold back 
a sob. 


256 


The Days of My Youth, 


He went there, however, and always suf- 
fered from it. He was the one who had made 
this marriage ; he ought to rejoice that Mau- 
rice, softened by conjugal life and paternity, 
did not return to his recklessness of former 
days; but on the contrary, the sight of this 
household, Maria’s happy looks, the allusions 
that she sometimes made of gratitude to Ame- 
dee ; above all Maurice’s domineering way in 
his home, his way of speaking to his wife like 
an indulgent master to a slave delighted to 
obey, all displeased and unmanned him. He 
always left Maurice’s displeased with himself, 
and irritated with the bad sentiments that he 
had in his heart ; ashamed of loving another’s 
wife, the wife of his old comrade ; and keeping 
up all the same his friendship for Maurice, 
whom he was never able to see without a feel- 
ing of envy and secret bitterness. 

He managed to lengthen the distance be- 
tween liis visits to the young couple, and to 
put another interest into his life. He was now 
a man of leisure, and his fortune allowed him 
to work when he liked and felt inspired. He 
returned to society and traversed the midst of 
miscellaneous parlors, greenrooms, and Bo- 
hemian society. He loitered about these places 
a great deal and lost his time, was interested 
by all the women, duped by his tender imagi- 
nation ; always expending too much sensibil- 


The Days of My Youth. 257 

ity in his fancies ; taking his desires for love 
and devoting himself to women. 

The first of his loves was a beautiful Madame, 
whom he met in the Countess Fontaine’s par- 
lors. She was provided with a very old hus- 
band belonging to the political and financial 
world ; a servant of several regimes, who hav- 
ing on several occasions feathered his own 
nest, made false statements of accounts, and 
betrayed his vows, his name could not be 
spoken in public assemblies without being 
preceded by the epithet of honorable. A man 
so seriously occupied in saving the Capitol, 
that is to say, in courageously sustaining the 
stronger, approving the majorities in all of their 
mean actions and thus incifeasing his own 
ground, sinecures, tips, stocks, and various 
other advantages, and necessarily neglecting 
his wife, and taking very little notice of the 
ridicule that she inflicted upon him as often 
as possible, and to which he seemed predes- 
tined. The lady — with a doll’s beauty, not 
very young, confining herself to George Sand 
in literature, making three toilettes a day, and 
having a large account at the dentist’s — sin- 
gled out the young poet with a romantic head, 
and rapidly traversed with him the whole 
route through the country of Love. Thanks 
to modern progress, the voyage is now made 
by a through train. After having passed the 
17 


258 The Days of My Youth, 

smaller stations, “ blushing behind the fan,” a 
“ significative pressure of the hand,” “appoint- 
ment in a museum,” etc., and halting at a sta- 
-tion of very little importance called “ scru- 
ples” (ten minutes pause), Amedee reached 
the terminus of the line and was the most en- 
viable of mortals. He became Madame’s lap- 
dog, the essential ornament in her drawing- 
room, figured at all the dinners, balls, and 
routs where she appeared, stifled his yawns at 
the back of her box at the Opera, and received 
the confidential mission of going to hunt for 
sweetmeats and chocolates in the foyer. 
His recompense consisted in metaphysical 
conversations and sentimental seances in which 
he was not long in discovering that his heart 
was blinded by his emotions. At the end of a 
few months of this commonplace happiness, 
the rupture took place without any regrets on 
either side, and Amedee returned without a 
pang, the love tokens that he had received, 
namely : a photograph, a package of letters in 
imitation of fashionable romances, written in 
long angular handwriting, after the English 
style, upon very chic paper ; and we must not 
forget, a white glove which was a little yel- 
lowed from confinement in the casket, like the 
beautiful Madame herself. 

A tall girl, with a body like a goddess, who 
earned three hundred francs a month by show- 


The Days of My Youth, 


259 


ing her dresses on the Vaudeville stage, and 
who gave one louis a day to her hair-dresser, 
gave Aniedee a new experience in love, more 
expensive, but much more amusing than the 
first. There were no more psychological sub- 
tleties or hazy consciences ; but she had fine 
strong limbs and the majestic carriage of a 
cardinal’s mistress going through tlie Rue de 
Constance, in heavy brocade garments, to see 
Jean Huss burned ; and her voluptuous smile 
showed teeth made to devour patrimonies. 
Unfortunately Mile Rose de Juin’s — that was 
the young lady’s theatrical name — charming 
head was full of the foolishness and vanity of 
a poor actress. Her attacks of rage when she 
read an article in the journals which cut her 
up, her nervous attacks and torrents of tears 
when they gave her parts with only fifteen 
lines in a new piece, commenced to annoy 
Amedee, when chance gave him a new rival in 
the person of Gradoux, an actor in the Va- 
riet^s, the ugly clown whose chronic cold in the 
head and ugly face seemed for twenty years so 
delicious to the most refined public in the 
world. Relieved of a large number of bank- 
notes, Violette discreetly retired. 

He next carried on a commonplace ro- 
mance with a pretty little girl whose acquaint- 
ance he made one evening at a public fete. 
Louison was twenty years old, and earned her 


26 o 


The Days of My Youth, 


living at a famous florist’s, and was as pink 
and fresh as an almond bush in April. She 
had only had two lovers, an art student first — 
gay fellows — then a clerk in a novelty store, 
who had given her the not very aristocratic 
taste for boating. It was on the Marne, seated 
near Louison in a boat moored to the willows 
on the Isle d’Amour, that Amed^e obtained 
his first kiss between two verses of a boating 
song, and this pretty creature, who never came 
to see him without bringing him a bouquet, 
charmed the poet. He remembered Beran- 
ger’s charming verses, I am of the people as 
well, my love 1 ” felt that he loved, and was 
softened. In reality he had turned this naive 
head. Louison became dreamy, asked for a 
lock of his hair which she always carried with 
her in her porte-monnaie, went to get her for- 
tune told to know if the dark complexioned 
young man, the knave of clubs, would be faith- 
ful to her for a long time. Amed^e trusted 
this simple heart for some time, but at length 
he became tired of her vulgarities. She was 
really too talkative, not minding her H’s and 
punctuating her discourse with “ for certain ” 
and “listen to me then,” calling Am^dee “my 
little man,” and eating vulgar dishes. One 
day she offered to kiss him with a breath that 
smelled of garlic. She was the one who left 
him, from feminine pride, feeling that he no 


* The Days of My Youth. 261 

longer loved her, and he almost regretted 
her. 

Thus his life passed, he worked a little and 
dreamed much. He went as rarely as possible 
to Maurice Roger’s house, Maurice had most 
decidedly turned a good husband, and was 
fond of his home and playing with his little 
boy. Every time that Am^dee saw Maria it 
meant several days of discouragement, sorrow, 
and impossibility of work. 

“Well! well !” he would murmur, throwing 
down his pen, when the young woman’s face 
would rise up between his thoughts and his 
page ; “ I am incurable, I shall always love 
her.” 

In the summer of 1870 Am^dee, being tired 
of Paris, thought of a new trip, and he was 
upon the point of going again, unfortunate 
fellow ! to see the Swiss porters who speak all 
the languages in the world, and to view the 
melancholy boots in the hotel corridors, when 
the war broke out. The poet’s passage through 
the midst of the revolutionary “ beards ” in the 
Caf6 de Seville, and the parliamentary cravats 
in the countess’ drawing-room, had disgusted 
him forever with politics. He also was very 
suspicious of the liberal ministers and all the 
different phases of the malady that was destroy- 
ing the second Empire. But Amed^e was a good 
Frenchman. The assaults upon the fron- 


262 


The Days of My Youth, 


tiers, and the first battles lost, made a burning 
blush suffuse his face at the insult. When 
Paris was threatened he asked for arms, like the 
others, and although he had not a military spirit, 
he swore to do his duty, and his entire duty, too. 
One beautiful September morning he saw 
Trochu's gilded cap passing among the bayo- 
nets; there were four hundred thousand Paris- 
ians there, like himself, full of good-will, who 
had taken up their guns with the resolve to 
die steadfast. Ah ! the misery of defeat ! All 
these brave men for five months could only 
fidget about the place and eat carcasses. May 
the good God forgive the timid and the prat- 
tler ! Alas ! Poor old France ! After so 
much glory! Poor Jeanne d’Arc’s and Napo- 
leon’s Francej 


CHAPTER XVI. 


The great siege lasted nearly three months. 
Upon the 30th of November they had fought 
a battle upon the banks of the Marne, then for 
twenty-four hours the fight had seemed to 
slacken and there was a heavy snow-storm ; 
but they maintained that the second of De- 
cember would be decisive. That morning the 
battalion of the National Guard, of which 
Am^dee Violette was one, went out for the 
first time, with the order to simply hold them- 
selves in reserve in the third rank, by the fort’s 
cannons, upon a hideous plain at the east of 
Paris. 

Truly this National Guard did not make a 
bad appearance. They were a trifle awk- 
ward perhaps in their dark-blue hooded cloaks, 
with their tin-plate buttons, and armed with 
breech-loading rifles, and encumbered with 
canteens, basins, and pouches, all having an 
unprepared and too new look. They all came 
from the best parts of the city, with accel- 
erated steps and a loud beating of drums, and 
headed, if you please, by their major on horse- 


264 


The Days of My Yoidh. 


back, a trussmaker who had formerly been 
quartermaster of the third hussars. Certainly 
they only asked for service ; it was not their 
fault, after all, if one had not confidence in 
them, and if they were not sent to the front 
as soon as they reached the fortifications. 
While crossing the draw-bridge they had sung 
the Marseillaise like men ready to be shot 
down. What spoiled their martial appearance, 
perhaps, were their strong hunting-boots, their 
leather leggings, knit gloves, and long gaiters ; 
lastly, that comfortable air of people who have 
brought with them a few dainties, such as a 
little bread with something eatable between, 
some tablets of chocolate, tobacco, and a phial 
filled with old rum. They had not gone two 
kilometres outside the ramparts, and were 
near the fort, where for the time being the 
artillery was silent, when a staff officer who 
was awaiting them upon an old hack of a 
horse, merely skin and bones, stopped them 
by a gesture of the hand, and said sharply to 
their major to take position on the left of the 
road, in an open field. They then stacked 
their arms there and broke ranks, and rested 
until further orders. 

What a dismal place ! Under a canopy of 
dull clouds, the earth bare with half-melted 
snow, with the low fort rising up before them 
as if in an attitude of defence, here and there 


The Days of My Youth. 


265 


groups of ruined houses, a mill whose tall 
chimney and walls had been half destroyed by 
shells, but where one still read, in large black 
letters, these words, “ Soap-maker to the No- 
bility and through this desolated country was 
a long and muddy road which led over to 
where the battle-field lay, and in the midst of 
which, presenting a symbol of death, lay the 
dead body of a horse. 

In front of the National Guard, on the other 
side of the road, a battalion which had been 
strongly put to the test the night before, were 
cooking. They had retreated as far as this to 
rest a little, and had spent all that night with- 
out shelter under the falling snow. Exhausted, 
bespattered, in rags, they were dolefully 
crouching around tlieir meagre green-wood 
fires ; the poor creatures were to be pitied. 
Underneath their misshapen caps they all 
showed yellow, wrinkled, and unshaven faces. 
The bitter cold wind that swept over the 
plain made their thin shoulders, stooping from 
fatigue, shiver, and their shoulder - blades 
protruded under their faded capes. Some of 
them were wounded, too slightly to be sent 
away in the ambulance, and wore about their 
wrists and foreheads bands of bloody linen. 
When an officer passed with his head bent 
and a humiliated air, nobody saluted him. 
These men had suffered too much, and one 


266 


The Days of My Youth, 


could divine an angry and insolent despair in 
their gloomy looks, ready to burst out and tell 
of their injuries. They would have disgusted 
one if they had not excited one’s pity. Alas ! 
they were vanquished ! 

The Parisians were eager for news as to re- 
cent military operations, for they had only read 
in the morning papers — as they always did 
during this frightful siege — enigmatical des- 
patches and bulletins purposely bristling with 
strategic expressions not comprehensible to 
the outsider. But all or nearly all had kept 
their patriotic hopes intact, or to speak more 
plainly, their blind fanatical patriotism, and 
were certain against all reason of a definite 
victory ; they walked along the road in little 
groups, and drew near the red pantaloons to 
talk a little. 

“ Well, it was a pretty hot affair on the 3oth^ 
wasn’t it ? Is it true that you had command 
of the Marne ? You know what they say in 
Paris, my children ? That Trochu knows 
something new, that he is going to make his 
way through the Prussian lines and join hands 
with the helping armies — in a word, that we 
are going to strike the last blow.” 

At the sight of these spectres of soldiers, 
these unhappy men broken down with hunger 
^nd fatigue, the genteel National Guards, 
warmly clad and wrapped up for the winter. 


The Days of My Youth, 


267 


commenced to utter foolish speeches and big 
hopes which had been their daily food for 
several months: “Break the iron circle;" 
“ not one inch, not a stone ; " “ war to the 
knife “one grand effort," etc. But the very 
best talkers were speedily discouraged by the 
shrugging of shoulders and ugly glances of the 
soldiers, that were like those of a snarling cur. 

Meanwhile a superb sergeant-major of the 
National Guard, newly equipped, a big full- 
blooded fellow with a red beard, the husband 
of a fashionable dressmaker, who every even- 
ing at the beer-house, after his sixth glass of 
beer would show, with matches, an infallible 
plan for blocking Paris and crushing the 
Prussian army like pepper, and was foolish 
enough to insist upon it : 

“Now then, you, my good fellow," said he, 
addressing an insignificant corporal just about 
to eat his stew, as if he was questioning an old 
tactician or a man skilled like Turenne or 
Davout ; “ do you see ? you hit it in this affair 
of day before yesterday. Give us your opin- 
ion. Are the positions occupied by Ducrot as 
strong as they pretend ? Is it victory for to- 
day ?" 

The corporal turned around suddenly, with 
a face the color of boxwood, and his blue eyes 
shining with rage and defiance, he cried in a 
hoarse voice : 


268 The Days of My Youth. 

“ Go and see for yourselves, you stay-at- 
homes ! ” 

Saddened and heart-broken at the demorali- 
zation of the soldiers, the National Guards 
withdrew. 

“ Behold the army which the Empire has 
left us ! ” said the dressmaker's husband, who 
was a fool. 

Upon the road leading from Paris, pressing 
toward the cannon’s mouth which was com- 
mencing to grumble again in the distance, a 
battalion of militia arrived, a disorderly troop. 
They were poor fellows from the departments 
in the west, all young, wearing in their caps 
the Brittany coat of arms, and whom suffer- 
ing and privation had not yet utterly deprived 
of their good country complexions. They 
were less worn out than the other unfor- 
tunate fellows whose turn came too often, and 
did not feel the cold under their sheep-skins, 
and still respected their officers, whom they 
knew personally, and were assured in case of 
accident of absolution given by one of their 
priests, who marched in the rear file of the 
first company with his cassock tucked up and 
his roman hat over his eyes ; these country fel- 
lows walked briskly, a little helter skelter, like 
their ancestors in the time of Stoffiet and M. 
de la Rochejaquelin, but with a firm step and 
their muskets well placed upon their shoul- 


The Days of My Youth. 269 

ders, by Sainte Anne ! They looked like 
soldiers in earnest. 

When they passed by the National Guard, 
the big blonde waved his cap in the air, furi- 
ously shouting at the top of his lungs : 

“ Long live the Republic ! ” 

But once more the fanatical patriot’s enthu- 
siasm fell flat. The Bretons were marching in- 
to danger partly from desire, but more from 
duty and discipline. At the very first shot 
these simple-minded creatures reach the su- 
preme wisdom of loving one’s country and 
losing one’s life for it, if necessary, without in- 
teresting themselves in the varied mystifications 
one calls government. Four or five of the 
men, more or less astonished at the cry which 
greeted them, turned their placid countrified 
faces toward the National Guard, and the 
battalion passed by. 

The dressmaker’s husband — he did nothing 
at his trade, for his wife adored him and he 
spent at cafes all the money which she gave 
him — was extremely scandalized. During this 
time Amedee Violette was dreamily walking 
up and down before the stacks of guns. His 
warlike ardor of the first few days had damp- 
ened. He had seen and heard too many fool- 
ish things said and done since the commence- 
ment of this horrible siege, had taken part too 
many times in one of the most wretched spec- 


270 


The Days of My Youth. 


tacles in which a people can show, vanity in 
adversity. He was heart-broken to see his 
dear compatriots, his dear Parisians, redouble 
their boasting after each defeat and take their 
levity for heroism. If he admired the resig- 
nation of the poor women standing in line be- 
fore the door of a butcher’s shop, he was every 
day more sadly tormented by the bragging of 
his comrades, who thought themselves heroes 
when playing a game of corks. The ofncial 
placards, the trash in the journals, inspired 
him with immense disgust, for they had never 
lied so boldly or flattered the people with so 
much low meanness. It was with a despair- 
ing heart and the certitude of final disaster 
that Amedee, needing a little sleep after the 
fatigue, wandered through Paris’ obscure 
streets, barely lighted here and there by petro- 
leum lamps, under the dark opaque winter 
sky, where the echoes of the distant cannon- 
ading unceasingly growled like the distant 
barking of monstrous dogs. 

What solitude ! The poet had not one 
friend, not one comrade to whom he could 
confide his patriotic sorrows. Paul Sillery 
was serving in the army of the Loire. Ar- 
thur Papillon, who had shown such boister- 
ous enthusiasm on the 4th of September, had 
been nominated prefet in a Pyrenean depart- 
ment, and having looked over his former stud- 


The Days of My Youth, 


271 


ies, the former laureate of the university ex- 
aminations spent much of his time therein, far 
from the firing, in making great speeches and 
haranguing from the top of the balconies, in 
which speeches the three hundred heroes of 
antiquity in a certain mountain pass were a 
great deal too often mentioned. Am6d6e 
sometimes went to see Jocquelet in the the- 
atres, where they gave benefit performances 
for the field hospitals or to contribute to the 
moulding of a new cannon, the actor, wearing 
a short uniform and booted to the thighs, 
would recite with enormous success poems of 
the times, in which enthusiasm and fine sen- 
timents took the place of art and common 
sense. What can one say to a triumphant 
actor, who takes himself for a second Tyrtee, 
and who after a second recall is convinced 
that he is going to save the country, and that 
Bismarck and old William had better look 
after their laurels. 

As to Maurice Roger, at the beginning of 
the campaign he sent his mother, wife, and 
child into the country, and wearing the dou- 
ble golden stripe of a lieutenant upon his mi- 
litia jacket, he was now at the outposts near 
his father’s old friend. Colonel Lantz. 

Owing to a scarcity of officers, they had 
fished up the old colonel from the depths of 
his engineer’s office, and had torn him away 


272 


The Days of My Youth. 


from his squares and compasses. Poor old 
fellow ! His souvenirs of activity went as far 
back as Crimea and Sebastopol. Since that 
time he had not even seen a pick-axe glisten 
in the sun, and behold, they asked this worthy 
man to return to the trench, and powder his 
despatches with earth ploughed up by bombs, 
like Junot at Toulon in the fearless battery. 

Well, he did not say “ Oh,” and, after kissing 
his three portionless daughters on the fore- 
head, he took his old uniform, half-eaten up 
by moths, from a drawer, shook the grains of 
pepper and camphor from it, and, with his slow 
red-tapist step, went to make his excavators 
work as far as possible from the walls and 
close by the Prussians. I can tell you the 
men of the auxiliary engineers and the gentle- 
men with the American caps had not joked 
for some time over his African cape or his 
superannuated cap, which seemed to date 
from Pere Bugeaud. One day, when a Ger- 
man bomb burst in their midst and they all 
fell to the ground excepting Colonel Lantz, 
who had not flinched, he tranquilly settled his 
glasses upon his nose and wiped off his 
splashed beard as coolly as he had, not long 
since, cleaned his india-ink brushes. Bless 
me ! it gave you a lesson, gentlemen snobs, to 
sustain the honor of the special army, and 
taught you to respect the black velvet plastron 


TJi^ Days of My Youth, 


273 


and double red bands on the pantaloons. In 
spite of his appearance of absence of mind 
and deafness, the Colonel had just before 
heard murmured around him the words “old 
Lantz,” and “ old dolphin.” Very well, gen- 
tlemen officers, you know now that the old 
army was composed of good material ! 

Maurice Roger was ordered from his battal- 
ion to Colonel Lantz, and did his duty like a 
true soldier’s son, following his chief into the 
most perilous positions, and he no longer 
lowered his head or bent his shoulders at the 
whistling of a bomb. It was genuine military 
blood that flowed in his veins, and he did not 
fear death ; but life in the open air, absence 
from his wife, the state of excitement pro- 
duced by the war, and this eagerness for 
pleasure common to all those who risk their 
lives, had suddenly awakened his licentious 
temperament. When his service allowed him 
to do so, he would go into Paris and spend 
twenty-four hours there, profiting by it to have 
a champagne dinner at Brebant’s or Voisin’s, 
in company with some beautiful girl, and to 
eat the luxurious dishes of that time, such as 
beans, Gruyere cheese, and the great rarity 
which had been secretly raised for three 
months on the fifth floor, a leg of mutton. 

One evening Amed^e Violette was belated 
upon the boulevards, and saw coming out of a 
18 


2 74 The Days of My Youth. 

restaurant Maurice, in full uniform, with one 
of the pretty comediennes from the Vari6tes 
leaning upon his arm. This meeting gave 
Amedee one heart-ache the more. It was for 
such a husband as this, then, that Maria, buried 
in some country place, was probably at this 
very time overwhelmed with fears about his 
safety. It was for this incorrigible rake that 
she had disdained her friend from childhood, 
and scorned the most delicate, faithful, and 
tender of lovers. 

Finally, to kill time and to flee from soli- 
tude, Amedee went to the Cafe de Seville, but 
he only found a small group of his former ac- 
quaintances there. No more literary men, or 
almost none. The “long-haired" ones had 
to-day the “ regulation cut,” and wore divers 
head-gears, for the most of the scattered poets 
carried cartridge-boxes and guns ; but some of 
the political “ beards ” had not renounced 
their old customs ; the war and fall of the 
Empire had been a triumph for them, and 
the 4th of September had opened every career 
for them. Twenty of these “beards” had 
been provided with prefectures, at least, all, or 
nearly all, of them occupied public positions. 
There was one in the Government of National 
Defence, and three or four others, chosen from 
among the most rabid ones, were members 
of the Committee on Barricades ; for, as im- 


The Days of My Youth. 


275 


probable as the thing may seem to-day, this 
commission existed and performed its duties, 
a commission according to all rules, with an 
organized office, a large china inkstand, 
stamped paper, verbal reports read and voted 
upon at the commencement of each meeting ; 
and, around a table covered with green cloth, 
these professional instigators of the Ca.(6 de 
Seville, these teachers of insurrection, gener- 
ously gave the country the benefit of the prac- 
tical experience that they had acquired in 
practising with the game of dominoes. 

The “ beards ” remaining in Paris were 
busied with employments more or less con- 
siderable in the government, but did not do 
very much, the offices in which they worked 
for France’s salvation, usually closed at four 
o’clock, and they went as usual to take their 
appetizers at the Cafe de Seville. It was there 
that Amedee met them again, and mixed 
anew in their conversations, which now dwelt 
exclusively upon patriotic and military sub- 
jects. These beards, who, none of them, would 
have been able to command “by the right 
flank ” a platoon of artillery, had all at once 
been endowed by some magical power with 
the genius of strategy. Every evening, from 
five to seven, they fought a decisive battle 
upon each marble table, sustained by the 
artillery of the iced decanter which rep- 


2/6 


The Days aj My Youth. 


resented Mount Valerian, a glass of bitters, 
that is to say, Vinoy’s brigade, feigned to 
attack a saucer representing the Montretout 
batteries ; wliile the regular army and National 
Guard, symbolized by a glass of vermouth and 
absinthe, were coming in solid masses from 
the south, and marching straight into the 
heart of the enemy, the match-box. 

There were scheming men among these 
beards," and particularly terrible inventors, 
who all had an infallible way of destroying at 
a blow the Prussian army, and who accused 
General Trochu of treason, guilty of refusing 
their offers, giving as a reason the old pre- 
judices of military laws among nations. One 
of these visionary people had formerly been 
physician to a somnambulist, and took from 
his pocket — with his tobacco and cigarette pa- 
pers — a series of bottles, labelled : cholera, yel- 
low fever, typhus fever, small-pox, etc., and pro- 
posed as a very simple thing to go and spread 
these epidemics in all the German camps, by 
the aid of a navigable balloon, which he had 
just invented the night before upon going 
to bed. Amedee soon became tired of these 
braggarts and lunatics, and no longer went 
to the Caf6 de Seville. He lived alone and 
shut himself up in his discouragement, and he 
had never perhaps had it weigh more heavily 
upon his shoulders than this morning of the 


The Days of My Youth. 


277 

2d of December, the last day of the battle of 
Champigny, while he was sadly promenading 
before the stacked guns of his battalion. 

The dark clouds, heavy with snow, were 
hurrying by, the tormenting rumbling of the 
cannons, the muddy country, the crumbling 
buildings, and these vanquished soldiers 
shivering under their rags, all threw the poet 
into the most gloomy of reveries. Then hu- 
manity so many ages, centuries perhaps, old, 
had only reached this point : Hatred, absurd 
war, fratricidal murder ! Progress ? Civiliza- 
tion ? Mere words ! No rest, no peaceful re- 
pose, either in fraternity or love ! The primi- 
tive brute always reappears, the right of the 
stronger to hold in its clutches the pale 
cadaver of justice ! What is the use of so 
many religions, philosophies, all the noble 
dreams, all the grand impulses of the thought 
toward the ideal and good ? This horrible 
doctrine of the pessimists was then true ! We 
are, then, like animals, eternally condemned 
to kill each other in order to live? If that is 
so, one might as well renounce life, and give 
up the ghost ! 

Meanwhile the cannonading now redoubled, 
and with its tragic grumbling was mixed the 
dry crackling sound of the musketry, beyond 
a wooded hillock which restricted the view 
toward the southeast, a very thick white smoke 


278 


The Days of My Yotith. 


spread over the horizon, mounting up into the 
gray sky. The fight had just recommenced 
there, and it was getting hot, for soon the am- 
bulances and wagons drawn by artillery men 
commenced to pass. They were full of the 
wounded, whose plaintive moans were heard 
as they passed. They had crowded the least 
seriously wounded ones into the omnibus 
which went at a foot pace, but the road had been 
broken up by the bad weather, and it was piti- 
ful to behold these heads shaken as they 
passed over each rut. The sight of the dying 
extended upon bloody mattresses was still 
more lugubrious to see. The frightful pro- 
cession of the slaughtered went slowly toward 
the city to the hospitals, but the carriages 
sometimes stopped, but a hundred steps from 
the position occupied by the National Guards, 
before a house where a provisionary hospital 
had been established, and left their least trans- 
portable ones there. The unhealthy but pow- 
erful attraction that horrible sights exert over 
a man urged Amedee Violette to this spot. 
This house had been spared from bombard- 
ment and protected from pillage and fire by 
the Geneva flag ; it was a small cottage which 
realized the dream of every shopkeeper after 
he has made his fortune. Nothing was lack- 
ing, not even the earthen lions at the steps, or 
the little garden with its glittering weather- 


The Days of My Youth. 279 

vane, or the rock-work basin for gold-fish. 
On warm days the past summer, passers-by 
might have seen very often under the green 
arbor, bourgeois in their shirt sleeves and 
women in light dresses eating melons to- 
gether. The poet’s imagination fancied at 
once this picture of a Parisian’s Sunday, when 
suddenly a young assistant appeared at an 
open window on the first floor, wiping his 
hands upon his blood-stained apron. He 
leaned out and called to a hospital attendant, 
that Am^dee had not noticed before, who was 
cutting linen upon a table in the garden: 

“ Well, Vidal, you confounded dawdler,” ex- 
claimed he, impatiently, “ are those bandages 
ready ? Good God ! are we to have them to- 
day or to-morrow ? ” 

“ Make room, if you please ! ” said at this 
moment a voice at Am^dee’s elbow, who 
stepped aside for two stretchers borne by four 
brothers of the Christian doctrine to pass. 
The poet gave a start and a cry of terror. He 
recosrnized in the two wounded men Maurice 
Roger and Colonel Lantz. 

Wounded both of them, yes ! and mortally. 
Only one hour ago. 

Affairs had turned out badly for us down 
there, then, on the borders of the Marne. 
They did a foolish thing to rest one day and 


28 o 


The Days of My Youth. 


give the enemy time to concentrate his forces; 
when they wished to renew the attack they 
dashed against vast numbers and formidable 
artillery. Two generals killed ! So many 
brave men sacrificed ! Now they beat a re- 
treat once more and lose the ground. One of 
the head generals, with lowered head and 
drooping shoulders, more from discourage- 
ment than fatigue, stood glass in hand observ- 
ing from a distance our lines, which were 
breaking. 

“ If we could fortify ourselves there at 
least,” said he, pointing to an eminence which 
overlooked the river, “ and establish a redoubt 
— in one night with a hundred picks it could be 
done. I do not believe that the enemy’s fire 
will reach this position, it is a good one.” 

“We could go there and see, general,” said 
someone, very quietly. 

It was Pere Lantz, the old “ dolphin,” who 
was standing there with Maurice beside him 
and three or four of the auxiliary engineers ; 
and upon my word ! in spite of his cap, which 
seemed to date from the time of Horace 
Vernet’s “ Smala,” the poor man with his 
glasses upon his nose, long cloak, and pepper- 
colored beard, had no more prestige than 
a policeman in a public square, one of those 
old fellows who chase children off the grass, 
threatening them with their canes. 


The Days of My Youth. 


281 


“ When I say that the German artillery will 
not reach there,” murmured the head general, 

I am not sure of it. But you are right, Col- 
onel. We must see. Send two of your 
men.” 

“ With your permission, General,” said P^re 
Lantz, “ I will go myself.” Maurice bravely 
added at once : 

“ Not without me. Colonel ! ” 

“ As you please,” said the General, who had 
already pointed his glass upon another point 
of the battle-field. 

Followed by the only son of his companion 
in arms in Africa and Crimea, this office clerk 
and dauber in water-colors walked to the 
front as tranquilly as he would have gone 
to the minister’s office with his umbrella under 
his arm. At the very moment when the two 
officers reached the plateau, a projectile from 
the Prussian batteries fell upon a chest and 
blew it up with a frightful uproar. The dead 
and wounded were heaped upon the ground. 
Pere Lantz saw the foot soldiers fleeing, and 
the artillery men harnessing their wagons. 

“ What ! ” exclaimed he, rising up to his full 
height, “do they abandon the position ?” 

The Colonel’s face was transfigured ; opening 
wide his long cloak and showing his black 
velvet plastron upon which shone his com- 
mander’s cross, he drew his sword, and putting 


282 


The Days of My Youth. 


his cap upon the tip of it, bareheaded, with his 
gray hair floating in the wind, with open 
arms he threw himself before the runaways. 

“ Halt ! ” commanded he, in a thundering 
tone. “Turn about, wretches ! turn about ! 
You are here at a post of honor. Form 
again, my men ! Gunners, to your places ! 
.Long life to France ! ” 

Just then a new shell burst at the Colonel’s 
and Maurice’s feet, and they both fell to 
the ground. 

Amedee, staggering with emotion and a 
heart bursting with grief and fear, entered the 
hospital behind the two litters. 

“ Put them in the dining-room,” said one of 
the brothers. “ There is nobody there. The 
doctor will come immediately.” 

The young man with the bloody apron came 
in at once, and after a look at the wounded 
man he gave a despairing shake of the head, 
and shrugging his shoulders, said : 

“There is nothing to be done — they will not 
last long.” 

In fact the Colonel was dying. They had 
thrown an old w^oollen covering over him 
through whicli the hemorrhage showed itself 
by large stains of blood which was constantly 
increasing and penetrating the cloth. The 
wounded man seemed to be coming out of his 


The Days of My Youth. 283 

faint ; he half opened his eyes, and his lips 
moved. 

The doctor, who had just come in, came up 
to the litter upon which the old officer was 
lying and leaned over him. 

“ Did you wish to say anything ? " he 
asked. 

The old Colonel, without moving his head, 
turned his sad gaze upon the surgeon, oh ! so 
sad, and in a voice scarcely to be heard, he 
murmured : 

“Three daughters — to marry — without a 
dowry ! Three — three ! " 

Then he heaved a deep sigh, his blue eyes 
paled and became glassy. Colonel Lantz was 
dead. 

Do not despair, old military France ! You 
will always have these simple-hearted soldiers 
who are ready to sacrifice themselves for your 
flag, ready to serve you for a morsel of bread, 
and to die for you, bequeathing their widows 
and orphans to you ! Do not despair, old 
France, of the one hundred years war and of 
'92 ! 

The brothers, who wore upon their black 
robes the red Geneva cross, were kneeling 
around the body and praying in a low tone. 
The assistant surgeon noticed Am^d^e Vio- 
lette for the first time, standing motionless in 
a corner of the room. 


284 The Days of My Youth. 

“ What are you doing here ? ” he asked him, 
brusquely. 

“I am this poor officer’s friend,” Amedee 
replied, pointing to Maurice. 

“So be it! stay with him — if he asks for a 
drink you have the tea there upon the stove. 
You, gentlemen,” added he, addressing the 
brothers, who arose after making the sign of 
the cross, “ you will return to the battle-field, 
I suppose ? ” 

They silently bowed their heads, the eldest 
of them closed the dead man’s eyes. As they 
were all going out together, the assistant sur- 
geon said to them, in a petulant tone of voice : 

“ Try to bring me some not quite so much 
used up.” 

Maurice Roger was going to die too, his 
shirt was stained with blood, and a stream ran 
down from his forehead on to his blond mus- 
tache, but he was still beautiful in his marble 
like pallor. AmM6e carefully raised up one 
of the wounded man’s arms and placed it upon 
the stretcher, keeping his friend’s hand in his 
own. Maurice moved slightly at the touch, and 
ended by opening his eyes. 

“ Ah ! how thirsty I am ! ” groaned he. 

Amedee went to the stove and got the pot 
of tea, and leaned over to help the unfortunate 
man drink it. Maurice looked at him with 
surprise. He recognized Amedee. 


The Days of My Youth. 


285 


** You, Araedee ! — where am I, then ? ” 

He tried in vain to rise up. His head 
dropped slightly to the left, and he saw, not 
two steps from him, the lifeless body of his 
old colonel, with eyes closed and features al- 
ready calmed by the first moments of perfect 
repose. 

“ My colonel ! ” said he. “ Ah ! I under- 
stand — I remember How they ran away 

— miserable cowards ! But you, Am^dee ? 

Why are you here ? ” 

His friend could not restrain his tears, and 
Maurice murmured : 

“ Done for, am I not ? ” 

“ No, no ! ” exclaimed Amed^e, with anima- 
tion. “ They are going to dress your wounds 
at once — They will come soon ! Courage, my 
good Maurice ! Courage ! ” 

Suddenly the wounded man had a terrible 
chill ; his teeth chattered, and he said again : 

‘‘ I am thirsty ! — something to drink, my 
friend ! — give me something to drink ! ” 

A few swallows of tea calmed him a little. 
He closed his eyes as if to rest, but a moment 
after he opened them, and, fixing them upon 
his friend’s face, he said to him in a faint 
voice : 

“You know — Maria, my wife — marry her — 

I confide them to you — she and my son ” 

Then, doubtless tired out by the fatigue of 


286 


The Days of My Youth. 


having spoken these words, he seemed to col- 
lapse and sink down into the litter which was 
saturated now with his blood. A moment 
later he commenced to gasp for breath. Ame- 
d€e knelt by his side, and tears fell upon his 
hands, while between the dying man's gasps 
he could hear in the distance, upon the battle- 
field, the uninterrupted rumbling of the can- 
non as it mewed down others. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


The leaves are falling ! 

This October afternoon is deliciously serene, 
there is not a cloud in the grayish-blue sky 
where the sun, which has shed a pure and 
harmonious light since morning, has com- 
menced to majestically decline, like a good 
king who has grown old after along and pros- 
perous reign. How soft the air is ! How 
calm and fresh ! This is certainly one of the 
most beautiful of autumn days. Below in the 
valley the river sparkles like liquid silver, and 
the trees which crown the hill-tops are of a 
lurid gold and copper color. The distant 
panorama of Paris is grand and charming, 
with all its noted edifices and the dome of the 
Invalides shining like gold outlined upon the 
horizon. As a loving and coquettish woman, 
who wishes to be regretted, gives at the mo- 
ment of departure her most intoxicating smile 
to a friend, so the close of autumn had put on 
for one of her last days all her splendid 
charms. 

But the leaves are falling ! 


288 


The Days of My Youth. 


Amedee Violette is walking alone in his 
garden at Meudon. It is his country home 
where he has lived for eight years. A short 
time after the close of the war he married 
Maurice’s widow. He is walking upon the 
terrace planted with lindens that are now 
more than half-despoiled of their leaves, ad- 
miring the beautiful picture and thinking. 

He is celebrated, he has worked hard and 
has built up a reputation, by good sincere 
books, as a poet. Doubtless they are still jeal- 
ous of him and he is often treated with injus- 
tice, but he is estimated by the dignity of his 
life, which his love of art fills entirely, he oc- 
cupies a superior position in literature. Al- 
though his resources are modest, they are suf- 
ficient to exempt him from anxieties of a 
trivial nature. Living far from society, in the 
close intimacy of those that he loves, he does 
not know the miseries of ambition and vanity. 
Amedee Violette ought to be happy. 

His old friend, Paul Sillery, who breakfasted 
with him that morning in Meudon, is con- 
demned to daily labor and the enervating life 
of a journalist, and when he was seated in the 
carriage which took him back to Paris that 
morning, to forced labor, to the article to be 
knocked off for to-morrow, in the midst of the 
racket and chattering of an editor’s office, be- 
side an interrupted cigar laid upon the edge 


The Days of My Youth. 289 

of a table, he heaved a deep sigh as he thought 
of Amedee. 

Ah ! this Violette was to be envied ! With 
money, home, and a family, he was not obliged 
to disseminate his ideas right and left. . He 
had leisure and could stop when he was not in 
the spirit of writing, he could think before he 
wrote and do some good work. It was not as- 
tonishing, to be sure, that he produced verit- 
able works of art when he is cheered by the 
atmosphere of affection. First, he adores his 
wife, that is easily seen, and he looks upon 
Maurice’s little son as his own, the little fellow 
is so pretty and attractive with his long, light 
curls. Certainly one can see that Madame 
Violette has a never-to-be-forgotten grief, but 
what a kind and grateful glance she gives her 
husband ! Could anything be more touching 
than this Louise Gerard, that excellent old 
maid, the life of the house, who has the knack 
of making pleasing order and elegant comfort 
reign in the house while she surrounds her 
mother, the paralytic Grandmother Gerard, 
with every care ? Truly ! Amedee has ar- 
ranged his life well. He loves and is loved : 
he has procured for mind and body valuable 
and certain customs. Now then ! he is a Avise 
and fortunate man. * 

While Paul Sillery, buried in the corner of 
a carriage, allowed himself to be almost car- 

19 


290 


The Days of My Youth. 


ried away by jealousy of his friend, Amedee, 
detained by the charm of this beautiful day 
which is drawing to a close, walks with slow, 
lingering steps under the lindens on the ter- 
race. 

The leaves are falling around him ! 

A very sight breeze is rising, the blue sky is 
fading a little below, in the nearest Paris 
suburb the windows are shining in the oblique 
rays of the setting sun. It will soon be night, 
and upon this carpet of dead leaves, which 
crackle under the poet’s tread, other leaves 
will fall. They fall rarely, slowly, but con- 
tinually. The frost of the night before 
blighted them all. Dried up and rusty they 
barely hang to the trees, so that the slightest 
wind that passes over them gathers them one 
after another, detaching them from their 
branches, whirling an instant in the golden 
light they at last rejoin with a sad little sound 
their withered sisters who sprinkle the gravel 
walks. The leaves fall, the leaves fall ! 

Amedee Violette is filled with melancholy. 

He ought to be happy. What can he re- 
proach destiny with ? Has he not the one he 
desired and always wished for for his wife ? 
Is she not the sweetest and best of compan- 
ions for him ? Yes! but he knows very well 
that she consented to marry him in order to 
obey Maurice’s last wish, he knows very well 


The Days of My Youth. 


291 


that Maria’s heart is buried in the soldier’s 
grave at Champigny. She has set apart a 
sanctuary within herself where burns as a 
perpetual light the remembrance of the adored 
dead, of the man to whom she gave herself 
without reserve, the father of her son, the 
liero who tore himself from her arms to shed 
his blood for his country. 

Amedee may be certain of the gratitude 
and devotion of his wife but he will never 
have her love, for Maurice, a posthumous 
rival, rises up between them. Ah ! this Mau- 
rice ! He had loved Maria very little or not 
very faithfully ! She should remember that 
he had first betrayed her, that but for Ame- 
dee he would have abandoned her and sh^ 
would never have been his wife. If she knew 
that in Paris when she was far away he had 
deceived her ! But she would never know 
anything of it, for Amedee has too much 
delicacy to hurt the memory of the dead and 
he respects and even admires this fidelity of 
illusion and love in Maria. He suffers from 
it. The one to whom he has given his name, 
his heart, and his life is inconsolable and he 
must be resigned to it. Although remarried 
she is a widow at the bottom of her heart and 
it is in vain that she puts on bright dresses, 
her eyes and her smile are in mourning for- 
ever. 


292 The Days of My Youth. 

How could she forget her Maurice when he 
is before her every day in her son, who is also 
named Maurice and whose bright, handsome 
face strikingly resembles his father’s ? Arne- 
dee feels a presentiment that in a few years 
this child will be another Maurice, with the 
same attractions and vices. The poet does not 
forget that his dying friend confided the or- 
phan to him, and he endeavors to be kind and 
good to him and bring him up well. He 
sometimes has a feeling of sorrow when he 
discovers the same instincts and traits in the 
child as in the man whom he had so dearly 
loved and who had made him such trouble ; 
in spite of all, he can not feel the sentiments 
of a father for another’s son. His union has 
been sterile. 

Poor Am^dee ! and they envy him ! The lit- 
tle joy that he has is mixed with grief and sor- 
row and he dares not confide it to the excel- 
lent Louise — who suspects it, however — whose 
old and secret attachment for him he surmises 
now and who is the good genius of his house- 
hold. If he had realized it before ? It might 
have been happiness, genuine happiness for 
him ! 

The leaves fall ! the leaves fall ! 

After breakfast, while they were smoking 
their cigars and walking along beside the 
masses of dahlias upon which the large gol- 


The Days of My Youth. 


293 


den spider had spun its silvery web, Amed4e 
Violette and Paul Sillery had talked of times 
past and the comrades of their youth. It was 
not a very gay conversation, for since then 
there had been the war, the Commune. How 
many were dead ! How many had disappeared ! 
And then, this retrospective review proves to 
one that one can be entirely deceived as to 
certain people and that chance is master. 

Such an one, whom they had once considered 
as a great prose writer, as the leader of a sect, 
and of whom five or six faithful disciples 
spread his doctrines of art while copying his 
waistcoats and even imitating his manner of 
speaking with closed teeth, is reduced to writ- 
ing stories for obscene journals. “ Chose,’' 
the fiery revolutionist, had been given a good 
position ; and the modest “ Machin," a man 
scarcely noticed in the clubs, had published 
two exquisite books, genuine works of art. 

All of the “ beards " and “ long-haired ” 
men had taken unexpected paths. But the 
politicians above all were astonishing in the 
variety of their destinies. Among the cafe’s 
frequenters at the hour for absinthe one 
could count eight deputies, three ministers, 
two ambassadors, one treasurer, and thirty ex- 
iles at Noumea awaiting the long-expected 
amnesty. The most interesting, everything 
considered, is that imbecile, that old fanatic 


294 The Days of My Youth. 

of a Dubief, the one who never drank anything 
but sweetened water ; for he, at least, was shot 
on the barricades by the Versaillese soldiers. 

One person whom the very thought of dis- 
gusted the two friends was that jumping-jack 
of an Arthur Papillon. Universal suffrage 
with its accustomed intelligence had not 
failed to elect this nonentity and bombastic 
fool and to-day he stirs about like a fish out 
of water in the midst of this political cess- 
pool. Having been enriched by a large dowry 
he has been by turns deputy, secretary, vice- 
president, president, head of committees, un- 
der secretary of State, in one word, everything 
that it was possible to be. For the time being 
he rants against the clergy, and his wife, who 
is ugly, rich, and pious, has just put their 
little girl into the Oiseaux school. He has 
not yet become minister, but rest assured he 
will reach that yet. He is very vain, full of 
confidence in himself, not more honest than 
necessary, and very obtrusive. Unless in the 
meantime they decide to establish a rotation, 
providing that all the deputies be ministers by 
turns, Arthur Papillon is the inevitable, neces- 
sary, man mentioned. In such a case this 
would be terrible, for his eloquence would 
flow in torrents and he would be one of the 
most agitating of microbes in the parliament- 
ary culture. 


The Days of My Youth. 


295 


And Jocquelet ? Ah ! the two friends only 
need to speak his name to burst into peals of 
laughter, for the illustrious actor now fills the 
universe with his glory and ridiculousness. 
Jocquelet severed the chain some time ago 
which bound him to the Parisian theatres. 
Like the tricolored flag he has made the tour 
of Europe several times ; like the English 
standard he has crossed every ocean. He is 
the modern Wandering Actor and the capitals 
of the old world and both Americas watch 
breathless with desire for him to deign to 
spread over them the manna of his mono- 
logues. At Chicago they detached his loco- 
motive and he intended, at the sight of this 
homage proportioned to his merits, to become 
a naturalized American citizen. But they 
proposd a new tour for him in old Europe 
and out of filial rememberance he consented 
to return once more among us. As usual he 
gathered a cart-load of gold and laurels. He 
was painfully surprised upon reaching Stock- 
holm by water not to be greeted by the squad- 
rons with volleys of artillery, as they once did 
in honor of a famous cantatrice. Let Diplo- 
macy look sharp ! Jocquelet is indifferent to 
the court of Sweden ! 

After Paul Sillery’s departure Amedee 
turned over in his mind various other things 
of former days. He has been a trifle es- 


296 


The Days of My Youth. 


tranged from Madame Roger since his mar- 
riage to Maria, but he sometimes takes little 
Maurice to see her. She has sheltered and 
given each of Colonel Lantz’ daughters a 
dowry. Pretty Rosine Cornbarieu’s face rises 
up before him, his childhood’s companion 
whom he met at Bullier’s and has never seen 
since. What has become of the poor little 
creature ? Amedee almost hopes that she is 
dead. Ah ! how sad these old memories are 
in the autumn when the leaves are falling and 
the sun is setting ! 

It has set, it has plunged beneath the hori- 
zon and suddenly all is dark. Over the 
darkened landscape in the vast pearl-colored 
sky spreads the melancholy chill which fol- 
lows the . farewell of day. The white smoke 
from the city has turned gray, the river is like a 
dulled mirror. Just now in the sun’s last rays 
the dead leaves, as they fell, looked like a 
golden rain, now they seem a dark snow. 

Where are all of your illusions and hopes of 
other days, Amedee Violette ? You think this 
evening of the rapid flight of years, of the 
snowy flakes of winter which are commencing 
to blossom on your temples. You have the 
proof to-day of the impossibility of absolutely 
requited love in this world. You know that 
happiness, or what is called so, exists only by 
snatches and lasts only a moment, and how 


The Days of My Youth. 


297 


commonplace it often is and how sad the next 
day! You depend upon your art for consola- 
tion. Oppressed by the monotonous ennui of 
living, you ask for the forgetfulness that the 
intoxication of poetry and dreams can only 
give you. Alas ! Poor sentimentalist ! your 
youth is ended ! 

The leaves fall ! The leaves fall ! 


THE END. 



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The Last of the Thorndikes. By James R. Gilmore [Edmund 
Kirk], (author of “A Mountain- White Heroine,” etc.). 12mo, 
cloth, $1.00 ; paper covers, 50 cents. 

One of the most characteristic books of the day. Full of interest and 
brilliantly written. 

Fur, Feathers, and Fuzz. By James Steele. 12nio, cloth, illus- 
trated, $1.00; paper covers, 50 cents. 

This collection of what might be aptly termed " out-of-door papers,” is 
instinct with nature, rich with bright and amusing anecdote, and full of out 
of the way and curious information. 

A Storm Ashore. By James H. Connelly. 12mo, paper covers, 

25 cents. 

A clever story of a quaint sea-coast town with its original characters and 
unique scenery. The interest never flags and many of the descriptions are 
full of dramatic force. 

Yone Santo. By E. H. House. 12mo, cloth, $1.00; paper covers, 

50 cents. 

Yone Santo is a charming Japanese girl, around whose life Mr. House has " 
constructed a story of the most exquisite sweetness, interest, and simplicity. 

An Impossible Possibility. By Charles E. L. Wingate. Paper 
covers, 25 cents. 

A story of the occult, and one of the most thrillingly original ever written. 


18-22 East 18th Street, NEW YORK. 




1 

GOLD MEDAL PARIS 

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